 You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. You don't realise you've changed until you go on tour, until you take your first shot, until you take your first target out and you think, fucking hell, this is it. I'm a snipe, I get upset. She's, yeah, she's not normal, she's something else. She's beyond, she goes beyond a remit of a wife, beyond it, to help me. I think about suicide all the time, all the time. I wake up in the morning thinking about it and I think the reason, there's a few reasons why I've never gone through with it. One, because my wife. Second, because my dog. And thirdly, somebody's got to find me. And if somebody finds me, I've infected them with my misery. Even when I'm gone, somebody else is suffering because they need to find me. I'm not crazy, right? I'm not crazy, but I have a voice in my head that says I'm vile. And it's not my own voice, it's somebody else on my right side, it's constantly there all the time. I say to my therapist who I see, I say, I feel sad, so, so sad. And I can't, I can't shift it, can't shift this sadness. Can't, can't find an end to it, really. And I miss, I miss me, I miss who I was. And I put one round in, cocked it, I put it in my mouth. I remember it slide and it was coming out. Boom, we're on. Today's guest, Craig Harrison. How are you? I'm good, mate. I'm good. I watched your story on Ladd Bible, phenomenal. The power in it from being a sniper, you've done four tours. The stresses of your life, you've put on the line, like, what you've gone through, what you're battling not just when you were in the British Army but what you had to battle after it. I was blown away by it. That's why I've been trying to get you on for months. But first and foremost, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. As I said, I'm still vertical, so I'm still pushing forward. You're looking well. Yeah, I feel okay. Yeah. Did a good gym session today, he says? Yeah, four o'clock. Four a.m. Every day. That's dedication. Yeah, bar weekends, that's time for the wife. Yeah, a bit of family time. Yeah. So, how did the rules go back to the start of my guess, Craig? Where you grew up, how it all began? I was born in Cheltenham, in the Cotswolds area, the Malverns. Just riding horses. I was just dedicated to horses. My mum got me a horse, had a good childhood, it wasn't bad. And from there, my mum sort of grew me to join the army because there was nothing in Cheltenham. People go to die, you know. And so, if I'd have stayed there, I would have grown old and died in Cheltenham. So, my brother joined the army first, and then I joined the household cavalry. I wanted to be a farrier. My grandad always told me, get a trade, get a trade. And I thought, yeah, I'd be a farrier, you know, because obviously the farrier that used to come to shoe my horses when I was younger, he seemed to be minted, you know. And I thought, yeah, a bit of money in the back pocket, a good trade. I joined the household cavalry, joined the army, and then become a farrier. What was your late grade? Yeah, I was a bit of a loner at school. I had one friend, and he was my cousin, Tom. He was a year older than me. But I didn't do too well at school at all. I used to bunk off all the time. And what was the point, you know, spent more time in the woods than I did actually at school, but left with nothing, you know, and a bit of a loner got picked on, really, from a size, big feet, my big ears, sort of grew into them now, I think. But yeah, quite, quite, quite at school. I didn't get too much trouble. Did that affect you growing up then, getting a billion? Yeah, really, because I was worried about going out, you know, going downtown, and he says, go downtown, do this for me. And I didn't want to do it because, well, I lived, it was gangs of lads, you know, and they always used to pick, and I can remember the gang now quite clearly in my head, you know, and I got me on back. Eventually? Yeah. Was that a relief for you? Was that a sense of revenge? Yeah, yeah. I remember joining the army, coming home on my first leave, and seeing him in McDonald's, and I told my mate Tom, I said, just down by the door, I took the broom handle off this broom mop, and I went to town. And they shut McDonald's down for two days. Yeah, I got my own back, self-satisfaction. Was that years and years playing in your mind to get revenge because of the torment you went through? Not really. Or was it just one of those things that happened? We spurred the moment, you know, and I thought, fuck this, I'm going to go for it. And just years and years of just being picked on, getting bullied. I thought, that's enough, this is what I'm going to do. So I did it, yeah. How was that feeling after that? Euphoria, rush, you know, that I felt, you're feeling destructible after a while, you think, yes. But I think this is what the army breathed into you, you know, they breathed that, they knocked that civilian out of you and build you into a man. And that's why my first leave, I came back as a man and I thought, no, I'm not having this no more. If I need to progress in the army, I need to be a man. And the opportunity came and it was there and I took it and I ran with it. What was the age that you joined there? Was it 16? 16 years old, yeah. So it's not like a young boy. Yeah, I did the guards depot down in Purbrite and it was the guards depot. Not now, it's an all arms place. But because the House of Cavalry is part of the household division with the guards, you have to do your training with them. And there was only two House of Cavalry lads in my platoon and they used to take the piss out of us all the time because of all shaggers and fucking cav theirs because they were the guards, you know. But I think it made me a better person What was it like joining them for the first time? Like being away from home? Were you away from home at 16? 16, yeah. I think my mum sort of like me put me in the line to join the army at an early age from about ten years old, I think. So I was doing my washing, doing my ironing, doing everything chores and everything. So she was building me up to it. So leaving home was, it didn't bother me. It didn't bother me. It was nice to get out of the house, really. And as soon as you get shouted at, you think, fucking hell, this is it. This is it. And never look back. It's like my wife told me. She goes, you never complain. You never complain. You're up early in the mornings, you train, you've got to work for nine hours, you do this, you do that. You never complain about doing it and I never complain about joining the army. None of the best things I've ever done. You've done four tours? I've done, well, ten altogether. What? Yeah, I've done three Bosnia, two Kosovo, three Iraq and two Afghan. That's a lot of tours. Yeah, it is, yeah. So see, when you were going through in 16, 17, 18, did you have a plan that you wanted to go down as a sniper or were you just... No, I joined the army to be a farrier. That was it. But in them days when I joined in the 90s, like the forge was big handle bar tashes, big guys hitting metal on an anvil and your face had to fit. And I was a bit dyslexic as well, you know. So when I got an opportunity to do a pre-assessment in the forge, my homework at night was more illustrated than writing and it wasn't good enough for them and plus my face didn't fit. So I didn't manage to get in the forge. How did you end up being a sniper then? Because people say that you're one of the best snipers ever. How do you think we're tackling? How do you feel that? When I was young, I used to do triathlons. So I was running, swimming, riding and shooting, you know, over a weekend. So my shooting skills were... I was alright, yeah, with an air rifle and how did I become a sniper is the household cavalry was nothing to do with snipering. It's all to do with reconnaissance, moving forward, gathering information of the enemy, restricting back, you know, we would go further. The furthest from us would be special forces and then it'd be an household cavalry and then it'd be the rest of the army, you know. And suddenly an opportunity came up where snipers were allowed in the household cavalry. So I thought this is what I want to do. I want to go at it all and have a go. And as I excelled, yeah, it was like because I was a country boy anyway and I spent most of my time wagging off school in the countryside. I understood it, you know, I understood about backdrops, aerial drop, front drops, camouflage and concealment, shape, silhouette, shine, stuff like that. And yeah, I excelled. How do snipers get treated with other regiments? Because I know other regiments fight with each other and stuff like that, but how do snipers get treated? Because I have a lonely job on all those. If you're out and doing a job with a sniper there's both of these, is that correct? Yeah. So how do you get treated? Is it not as if you have another battalion or how does it work? You stay with your regiment and when you go on tour, if they're short of snipers, another regiment or a troop or something, you end up being attached to them. But you get treated like tramps of the army. Do they? Yeah, because you're scruffy. You know, you're scruffy, you're gillied up, you spend your time with your number two, who's one of my best friends still now, you know, and you end up having that companionship. You don't want to go away talking or stuff like that. You just want to stay in your little unit. You know, I think you end up doing that naturally instead of mingling. You end up being on your own naturally because not because you're a sniper, because you get taught it, you know. As you used to do about street fighting back in the day, early years? Yeah, when I was at Nicebridge, yeah, down in Houston it was. There's a gym down there. I don't think it's there anymore. Yeah, I met a guy who said, you're interested in making some money. And I said, yeah, I'm interested. And he said, it's all to do with fighting. And the first time I went down there, I thought it was a bit out of my league, you know. And you end up having three fights a night. You could win up to about 300 to 600 quid a fight. It depends who's booking better on you. But the idea is always lose a fight. Never win all your fights because then the people won't take you outside and do you over. You won't think you're a cocky fucker. So there's a way of doing it and making money. Did the army training help you with the fighting? Or was that just a release for you? It was more of a release. I had a lot of anger when I was younger. My grandfather died when I was young and he was like a father figure to me. And I think that all bottled up inside me, you know. And I had a sheet of ice and all this anger and anxiety and stress was holding this ice wall, you know. And then obviously it crumbled years on and the situation we're in now in my life. Yeah. What's training like for us, Naipa? It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. You have to do, it's nine weeks altogether. I think it's extended now, I'm not quite sure but it might, it was nine and a half weeks, nine weeks. And you do a shooting phase first. Anyone can shoot a rifle. You know, I could give you a rifle now with a scope on it. I can lay you down and go right over there. Put this on your scope and you'll hit it. That's the easy bit. The hard bit is the snipering bit, the camouflage and concealment, reading a map, sketching, observing, staying still. That's the hardest bit of being a sniper. You know, of the whole course. And a lot of people pass the shooting and fell on the sniper bit to become a sniper. But when you pass the shooting, you're a sharpshooter. So you can go back to the regiment as a sharpshooter. But to pass the sniper phase is an extra tick in your balls. What sort of targets do you have when you're training? We just call them huns heads. They look like little diddy heads. A full size, a bit of paper to give people a rough idea. Yeah. And I think my last tests that I did was I had the radio on and I was all gillied up in his bush. And you had to stay there for 24 hours. And within that 24 hours, a target would pop up and then you'll get a countdown in your ear. But it could be 24 hours. It could be 19 hours. It could be 18 hours. It could be an hour, half an hour, you know. And suddenly you're nodding dog because you've been there for so long looking for the scope and you hear five, four, three, two, one, target down. You're like that. What the... I didn't see it. I didn't see it. Luckily I saw mine. I saw mine. And it's got a letter on it and have like a fluorescent k on a white background. And you've got to give that information back because being a sniper, people have got this mentality in the head of being a sniper, you get a gun, you go out and kill people. You're like an assassin. You just go out and do the job. It's not. The first job of a sniper is to gather lifetime information of the battlefield. So it's your job to go out there, get information and then bring that information back. And once that information is back and they can work out what to do, then you go and take the target out. That's the whole idea. So see when you're doing the training and so you had to stay up for like 24 hours, was there any times you thought to yourself, fuck this, this is a bit extreme? No. Did you just love it? Love it. That was your passion? Yeah, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Yeah. Because see when you're speaking about it, how you feel alive? It gives me good... It's funny enough, my daughter's getting married in December. You're not going to get your sniper out. Yeah. And my wife was going through some photos and I found some photos of when I did my snipers course and it brought about a lot of memories, a lot of memories than I thought. And it's funny enough, because every weekend we had off, I'd go back home and then I'd go into camp into the tailor shop and I'd be making modifications to my ghillie suit, putting pads on my trousers, trying to make myself better. Where lads were just relaxed, I was still doing stuff to strive to be better. Did you see changes in yourself going through the training? Did you see changes to be drilled into that person that don't sleep, look for targets, noises, whatever it is you do for training? Did you totally start seeing changes in yourself or did you just become so consumed about what you're being taught and you don't really realise that you were changing? You don't realise you've changed until you go on tour, until you take your first shot, until you take your first target out and you think, fucking hell, this is it. I'm a sniper, this is what it's doing. People do sniper courses never fire a shot in their whole career, you know. Some people go on tour like the Marines, they've got all the parrots, all the rifles. They go on tour and their snipers will have one hell of a tour, good or bad. But I think you notice the change when you take your first shot. And then you become a bit of a loner. You do become a bit of a loner. They say you do courses in the army and you become trades, you do crew commanders and you have a trade and then you do your snipers course and that's a trade. But now I'm a big believer in saying that snipers wasn't a trade, it was a course. Now, now looking back at it. You see me again through training and you get called up for your first mission. What do you call it? A job? How is it you call it? Yeah, a mission. A mission. So when you get called up for your first mission, what's the feeling like if you've been trained that much that it becomes normal? There's still nerves there that you're thinking, okay, it's game time. After you take your first shot and you've took your first target out and no one's tapping you on the shoulder going, you just killed someone. Can I have a quick word with you? Now, how did this happen? No one's going to question it, you know, because you're doing your job. You're doing what you're being paid for. So after that, it gets, when you get your next mission, you're like, I'm up for this now. I'm up for this. I know I can do it. I know what I've done the first time, you know, because I can remember it clear as day in my head, the first mission I went on, you know, and then second mission becomes second nature, third mission, fourth mission, fifth mission. It's good to be scared. It's good to be nervous because if you're not nervous or scared, you make stupid mistakes. You know, you become more, you become more in tune to surroundings. If you've got cocky with it, you're going to make mistakes. That's what I believe. How much training did you do before you went on your first mission? You do, well, you do six months low level training in England. And then as a sniper, you do extra training because you have to pass filled firing tests to make sure that you're up for the task. What's the psychology side of things before you go on a first mission? There's a lot there. Is it just training to get targets? Trainings get targets. And you get talked to after. So they ask you, because it's called trim, a trauma, something they call it, and each mission you go on, you're meant to get trimmed when you come off your mission. So it's meant to lower down PTSD, you know, but it doesn't happen all the time and some regiments are better than others. When you get called off your first mission, where did you end up? In Iraq, in the desert. What was that feeling for you? We were, yeah, we were in a mug, which is a moving, sort of like moving vehicles around, and we're moving around the desert. And they was, every time we stopped for a long period of time, we were 100 miles away from anywhere. We're in the Mesa desert in Iraq, 100 miles away from anywhere. And we would get artillery mortared, and then we'll have to move somewhere else mortared. And we noticed that a motorbike was following us. Every time we went somewhere, a motorbike would follow us. And we realized that this motorbike was dicking us. He was giving information, coordinates to where we were, so the artillery can be popped in on us. So I got the green light to take this guy out. He was 675 yards away. It's quite hard in the heat, because you obviously see the films where you see somebody in the desert walking towards you, they look really tall, they look really high. So that's because of the heat shimmer. And there's like four to five different heat shimmers that you can get. And so you have to work that out. So you have to shoot low. And yeah, I shot the guy. And how long did you have to wait for your target? I know some of the times you've went days, but did you just set up and then look for the target and then shoot as it take hours? I took myself away from the patrol itself. So he just thought he was looking at the patrol. And I could definitely, I could PID him. There's no point. He could just be like a guy who's interested in vehicles. I had to PID him. He had a radio on him, you know, and he had an AK-47 strapped to his motorbike. So he had all the indicators that he was dicking us. So, and I took myself away a few hours. He came into view because we guarantee as soon as we stop, we've got artillery, you know, and he came into view and I took him out. And what was that feeling for you, for like the hours leading up to his nerves or were you just cold, calm and ready to do your job? Cool. Yeah, it was weird, weird feeling, you know. It was more afterwards. When you sit on your, when you sit there with the lads, you become quiet. And like I said before, you're expecting that tap on the shoulder. You feel in trouble because of what you've just done, you know. It's unnatural to do that sort of thing, but you're in the Army. And that's what the Army is all about. It's all about, you know, doing the tours, standing up for what you feel is right, doing your job, you know, and that's what I'd done. But I always expected that tap on the shoulder, but the taps on the shoulder I got were, you know, well done. You're doing all right. Good job. Yeah, good job. So see when you like killed the target, is that, like what's that feeling then? Is it like a adrenaline feeling that I've done a good job? I'm doing the right thing or is that just move on to the next? It's your job at the end of the day. It's your job, yeah. But the hardest bit was I had to go up to that target and PID him. So it wasn't the fact of just taking the shot and walking away and let somebody else deal with it. I dealt with it myself as well. So I went up to the target and get information on him. I took maps off him. I took the radio off him, took his AK off him. His motorbike was still revving like fuck. The throttle was caught in the sand. So the motorbike was like really revving. The back wheel was gone lunatic. And yeah, he passed away. Is that the hardest thing? Is that harder than killing a person to actually seeing them dead? Yeah, because you've done that. You've done that. And you're still rushing after it. You're still getting that bit of a, you know, and like I said before, it's when you slow down. It's when you've got a bit of downtime and you're expecting that look of the shoulder, tap on the shoulder. But after a week, that's how long it lasted, a week. And after a week, it sort of dissipated and went away. And next mission came along and you feel right because I've done my first mission well, second mission is going to be okay. I'm not going to get a tap on the shoulder. So see me again through that, like those motions and everything that do you get time to, okay, you take a few days off or is it just straight back into the job? Straight back in. Yeah, people think that when you go on tour, it's like you're full on. Yeah, sometimes you're full on. But majority of the time it's more downtime and you go on patrols and you have a mission and you have some downtime. Because the downtime is important. You know, you need to have that downtime to get your thoughts together. If you're just getting smashed all the time, you're going to make stupid mistakes and lives are going to get lost, you know. So see when you're on tour and if you kill someone then you have to go and look at the body. Because you're trained as a sniper, do you ever get paranoid that there's other snipers actually looking for you as a target? Yeah, without a doubt. When I brought the world record, I didn't know I'd brought the world record at the time. And then I got deployed onto a ridgeline to look into this village. And because I had done so much devastation on that tour, they sent an out-of-season fighter. Now an out-of-season fighter is not an Afghan guy. It could have been a Chechen. It could have been a Russian. It could have been anything, you know, a foreigner sniper to hunt me down. So every time I got deployed somewhere they were so many trying to find me. So that was... So you had like a wanted target on your head because you were making waves at this guy's carrying all the other people's... That was correct, yeah. How does that make you feel about it? Scared? Constant? Yeah, constantly looking over your shoulder. And funny enough, I still look over my shoulder now. You know, I'm still aware of what's going on around me. Like we said earlier, it's probably the training you've had. It probably is. But I'm very aware of my surroundings. Yeah, because I picture up from the train station and he says, let's just stop here because there's two people behind you. There's that noise and stuff. Noise and people just walk so close up behind you and it makes me feel uncomfortable. So let's just stop here. Have you ever said to anyone, look back off? No. No. No. Then I have to say, I've learnt now to say I'm stopping because sometimes I just stop and my wife will just fuck off in a distance, you know. And she's talking. And then she'll stop and she'll go, great. And I'm back there somewhere waiting for people to pass. I'm fucking laughing but I can understand that you've actually went through what you've done. I know a lot of people, as a job and you're helping save troops your own. Troops to then obviously go on and whatever targets you're doing, whatever jobs you're doing. So when you started moving through and it becomes easier then to then kill people and do the missions without, it's just normal. Yeah, I think killing's always the second priority. You know, like I said before, but it does become easier. You become quite numb to it, you know. And then you're a sniper, isn't you? Yeah. And that's what it's about. What's the longest you've stayed on a job to have a target? 10 days. 10 days. Without moving? Without moving. On this ridgeline, yeah. And how do you do the toilet and stuff? I just, I dug a trough between my legs with my feet and ended up peeing, just peeing there or peeing like the, you know, the big containers, you get the hand sanitizer in, you end up peeing in them. They can fold up. You end up shitting in a little tub where a tub so you're not leaving any ground sign behind. Yeah. Is that in your mind as well? Can you leave DNA and stuff if somebody knows where you've made your kill can other intelligence gather your DNA and know who you are then? Yeah. Cross your mind, is that not an issue? The idea is, you know, it's a massive issue because if I was tracking somebody and I found a fag butt or I found their shit or I found their piss, I can say, yeah, he's hydrated so I know he's got water or, yeah, fucking hell. It looks like leukocide. So I know he's dehydrated too much. He can't have much water left or you look at their shit and you think, right, he's eating well because the shit looks like that or if his shit's like got diarrhea, you know, he's got DMV or he's dehydrated still. You know, there's certain DNA in cigarette butts you can take DNA off that and go back and realise, yeah, that's still warm. Yeah, he hasn't been here long. What cigarette maker is it? Oh, that's an Englishmake. You know, there's loads of information that you can get from that. So the idea is, is take everything away with you. So you get taught that with your shit, piss, cigarette, stuff. Yeah, you call it an aging pit and what you do, you get like like four foot by four foot square and you put grids in it. And in that grid, you put an apple core and that one grid will become one day and each day you move it and you keep moving it and moving it and moving it until it comes to the last grid which would be two weeks or a week and see how mouldy and rotten it is and you're seeing the transformation of that apple core and it's called an aging pit or an aging grid and that's what they do as well. Do it with cigarette butts as well because they fade after a while and you sort of like get tuned into that you go, yeah, that's about a week old that's two days old so somebody's been here two days ago I'm not going to be here I'm going to move somewhere else because there's a cigarette butt there so there's inhabitants so you move somewhere else. That's mad. You see it in the films you see them picking up cigarettes they're touching the urine and stuff and you think that's just a bit far-fetched but that happens, yeah? Yeah, it does, yeah. Shit, man. So I'm about an intelligence to go through to be learning stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Did you ever turn down a job, Craig? No. You can't turn down jobs in the army. No, that's refusing as a soldier. You know, you got to do what you got to do. And how do you get that? Do you go right? When do you get the information intelligence to where you're going? On the day? Yeah, on the day. So you'll have an old group where everyone goes into this old group and then they go, right, yeah, we need snipers on this. We need Overwatch for this. We need this. We need this. Yeah, we need heavy armaments. We need artillery support, you know, and then they will go through your role as a sniper. You said, right, you're going before everyone else. You're going this hill. You'll observe any movement any enemy movement at all. Let us know if there's any enemy movement. If there's not, then the task will go forward. But if there's any movement in there, so it all relies on you in a way. So see the 10 days you were on a mission. Did you sleep? You catnap for the day. Yeah. And like what? Like a burst of 20 minutes? 20 minutes. 20 minute catnap, because I have number two with me and he would catnap as well. He would stay awake, I would catnap just because he had, but usually the number two would have a spot in scope out. But on this occasion, we both had rifles out. So if one of us could take the shot, one of us could take the shot. Because it's usually number two is the better, the better at doing the observing, better at calculations. And number one is usually the better shot, but me and my mate were about as equal. So we just took it in turns. So when did you, you got the world's longest sniper kill? Yeah. And it was like 1.6 miles or something? Yeah, 2,475 meters. And the gun that you were using, the rifle could only go 600 meters, is that correct? 1,500 meters. 1,500 meters. So how do you get a target from over a mile away? How do you judge that with the wind and the climate? How many things do you judge? Climate, atmosphere, barometric pressure, I think wind, but this day was perfect. You know, like in winter when you wake up, like today, perfect blue sky, no wind, cold, but it's perfect. That was the day that, because I took the shot. I was only wearing a t-shirt, but not many people know I was stood up when I'd done the shot. I wasn't lying down. I was stood up against the wall when I took the shot. And it took me nine shots to get there in the morning. Because we were getting dicked. Do you want to know the story? Yeah, do you want to know the story? Yeah, yeah. Basically, there was an op-going, an operation going in where the Afghan army, mixed with British troops, were going into this village to clear this village out for the Taliban. And it was my job as Maverick 4.1 to give overwatch. And I had four other vehicles with me, my lads in there. So I had about 12 guys with me. And it was our job to give overwatch. But I could see all the Taliban in this village where I was. I could see them all. I could see them queuing up, waiting to attack this patrol coming in. And I informed them that you're going to get hit in a minute. And you have a kill zone. Now this kill zone is where it's easy for to get killed. And it's a box, usually a box. And they walk into that kill zone and the Taliban would open up. There'd be no cover, no shelter, no nothing. And you just get massacred. I had with me an interpreter who had an icon. And an icon is a radio that is tuned into the Taliban frequency. So you can hear them talking to each other. And I was going, what they say now? What they say now? They go, yeah, they can see the patrol. They're walking up to the kill zone. And then it opened up. And then in the distance, I saw a glimpse. I thought, what the fuck's that? So I got my spot in scope out, which is more magnified than my scope and my rifle. I looked up and I could see a guy with a radio because I can see the antenna was glinting off the sun and next to a compound. And I thought, right, I'm going to have this fucker. So I fucking loaded up and I shot and I was really low. And I tried to laser it through laser binos because then it comes up the distance so I can do the calculations, but just kept coming up lines. So I knew it was over the range of the laser binos and at the range of my rifle. So what I did is bracket. Now, bracketing is when you fire the first shot and you know where it's landed and you just lift the rifle up a bit and you fire again, fire again, you go in and it took me nine shots and I hit the compound wall. And you can see the dust in the compound wall. Next when I knew the interpreter said to me, he said they're on their own. And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, well, the person you've just shot at he's got his head down and he's gone blind. So the Taliban now can't see the patrol coming in. So they're fighting blind. So then I decided to move my vehicles into the kill zone itself to get covering fire for the patrol to move back so they can move back or they're injured and wounded. And I started taking out Taliban in the village itself and I noticed in the corner of my eye there was a Taliban stood next to a water pump and I thought, and I was looking like looking over my shoulder and I was going, what the fuck is he doing there? And I thought they're going to flank us. He's found who I was because I was quite exposed on top of this hillside. They found out where I was and they're going to come round and flank us. Now they had some nomads behind me and I looked, they're fucked off. They're gone. They were in the distance on their camels going. And I thought something's going on here. They've sent something. They left everything, boarding kettles, a little old granny. They left her behind. She was just sat on this little stone. And so I turned around and I wasted this guy because I thought he was a marker. But he wasn't what he had done. He had knocked the water pump head off. He had flooded all the irrigation fields. So now my vehicles were just wheel spinning in the mud. They were stuck. And next thing I knew I saw splashes coming up and I thought, where is it? And I could see all my lads hitting the ground with a cover and the vehicles were getting pepper sprayed, everything. And I checked all the points while I engaged the enemy. I checked them all. I was checking them, checking them. I thought, I can't see anything. The only place I didn't check is where that compound was. And I checked and there was two Taliban up there. And I knew that I had shot there in the morning. This lasted for about three hours, this engagement. And so I thought, well, I need to do this because my men are going to get killed. So I fired my first shot and it missed. I saw it splash just in front. And I saw one guy stand up and as he stood up I fired again and the bullet took six seconds to fly there. So I'm firing. I'm going one, two, six. And the guy went down and I hit him here. And then the second guy was still firing. He stood up. I fired my third shot. And as I fired my third shot, I moved my rifle across and fired another shot. So this time I got two bullets in the air at the same time. One at three seconds, one at six seconds. Third one missed, fourth one hit him. And it hit him in the side here. And the reason why we knew where we hit him is because we wanted to get the weapon off him. Because if we don't get the weapon, it gets recycled back into the Taliban. But the weapon had already gone. It was just these guys. So seeing you shoot from that distance, is the pepper stall strong? No, the bullets slowed down to about 40. We worked it out to about 40 miles an hour. So if they had body armor on it, it would have just gone dink. But it didn't. It actually penetrated them. So slow has got to be worse, hasn't it? Really getting shot. Because that cavity has got opened slower as well. Did you not have to bend the bullet from higher up to come down as well or something? No, I had a quite clear shot from where I was. There's a picture of me actually taking the shot and my gunner took it. And from where I'm standing, it looks like I'm shooting like this. But I've had a clear view from where he was. But you've got to think over a thousand yards, the spin of the world, the carry-onus effect of the world takes effect of that bullet as well. So wherever you're facing in the world, you've got to take into consideration where that bullet's going. And I say to this day now, it was a fluke to this day now. Do you think that discredited in yourself from the knowledge and everything that you've achieved? Not really. I tried to save 12 guys and get them out of the shit. And I didn't even know the distance to where I was firing. And then the fact that an Apache came up behind me and he hovered up and I saw the pilot and I was going like that and he lasered it because I didn't want to see, but I wanted to know if there's any more enemy in that area. And they flew over and that's how he got GPS'd. And you got medals and stuff for that? You got medals? That's when you found out it was the longest sniper kill? Yeah. I did my medals parade when we came back off tour. I did my medals parade. And my men had seen the most action on that tour. So we had the most stories. So they bring like a reporter in and it gets censored. So it go to London District Media Ops and it will get censored saying you can't put that, can't put that. Yeah, you can put that in the paper now, but it never got censored. And my name was plastered all over the papers and that's when I started getting death threats. And that's when we went into hiding for three years. So you had to go on a little protection? It wasn't. We had police protection for the first year and then we moved to America. Because they printed your name? Yeah, they wanted to cut my head off because I found out the two guys that I killed were Taliban leaders. Two Taliban leaders. We were orchestrating the attack from where they were. So what happens then? Were you alive for it to become a wanted man from some of the most ruthless people on this planet? Destroys it. Fucking destroys it. Where you have to leave the country, you leave everything behind. My wife especially, she really suffered. Everyone was going to me. Enjoy it, enjoy the moment, enjoy the moment. As soon as they opened the paper it was just about me. It was nothing about my lads or what they've been through which they deserve the credibility as well because it's not a one man army. I had 16 guys with me. I did that tour with 16 guys. I came back with six guys, original guys on that tour. We got hit hard. So it's to do with their credibility as well. And it was all about me. All about me. And my wife goes, I've got a funny feeling about this, Greg. I've got a really funny feeling about this. And everyone's going, no, let me enjoy it. Well done. Let me enjoy this. Let me enjoy that. And she was fucking right. She was, yeah, she was right. So how did you know that you were a wanted man? The fact that he got printed in the paper which I've still got the paper clipings now which they wanted to kidnap a Muslim soldier and also behead me for what I achieved in Afghanistan. He was all plastered in the papers as well. When you went to America, where did you stay? Well, we stayed just in Washington, down south from Washington. In an army base? No. We just had a new life over there. Shit. Just makes you question everything as well, everything you do. Did you feel safe though? In America we did. Yeah. Yeah, it was all right. It was all right. We want to come back because Trump renew my visa because Trump's new policy, make America great again. So he kicked my wife out first and he kicked me out. And then we came back to England and then because we've been out of the country for three years, no credit history, none this. I couldn't get a car. I couldn't get a phone. I couldn't get a loan. I couldn't get a mortgage or anything because the army had fucked it all up for me. So everything that you've done for your country, man, risking your life, taking other people's lives to then help your brothers to then being fucked over basically? Massively. Massively. Like I said before, you know, 23 years, half an hour to get kicked out. And then coming back, you've no credit, no nothing. That's hard. How hard is it as well that losing your brothers, like being on tour, 60 knees and only six come back? How hard is that when you lose men? I'd imagine, is that the more tough, is that the toughest thing over the job? Yeah. Yeah. Because you feel responsible because prior going on tour, you know, you do exercises and you practice six months before going on tour. You're training for six months doing low level training. So, when, one incident where I was on top of a hill, another vehicle there, my mate, and I told him, I said, right, you need to go down. I said, no, wait, I'll do that. You wait here. And as all rolled off, I stopped and go, no, I changed my mind, you go, hit a fucking IED, driver lost both his legs. Jonesy did his ankle in, fucking, gonna went deaf, fell off the back, hit a, like a 20 kilo HMA, you were like homemade explosive. And that's the hardest stuff to deal with. It is because you think, why did I, why didn't I go? Why didn't I go? You know what I mean? Why did I put him there? Why did I put that guy there? Why didn't I go there? You want to be there all the time. You want to be in the front of it because you don't want your men to get hurt. You know, that's a big thing. So you're willing to die for your troops any day, any time? Sounds a bit cliche, doesn't it? But yeah, I suppose. And you get annoyed at that because you're doing a job, but yet, when you lose troops, you feel as if you're to blame. That's a big burden to keep on your, your heart, but is it not? Big. I wear it. I wear it. So see, how many jobs did you do? Do you count? No. No? No. Like, fucking, job, man. That's tough what you've done and what you've went through and everything that you've done that. I suppose from, either from being special forces, I think a sniper is one of the, as well as being a tough job because they get used and abused all the time. You know, they are rushed off their feet and when you go on tour, you do get a bit raped as a sniper. Is that what you feel now? Yeah. Yeah, he did, yeah. Not at the time though? Not at the time, you're just doing your job. You're there, you've got to do it. It makes time go quicker as well. Yeah. You know, because you just want the tour to finish. You want to just go back to your wife. When did, how far were you doing your, your job when you made your messes? Um, my second tour of the lack when I met her, just came back from my first tour and I met her in Bedford and, I get upset. She's, yeah, she's, um, not normal. She's something else. She's beyond, she goes beyond a remit of a wife, beyond it, to help me. Kindest woman in the world. Do you feel as if that she, she didn't realise what she was getting into being with somebody who was in the British army? That's true, yeah. She just thought soldiers are soldiers, you know, everyone hears about soldiers on the piss and rousing it up and she fought that stigma sticks but then she realised how professional and how close we all are and what it means to be a soldier, you know, and how proud we are. As a lower rank to a senior rank, you know, you do get proud to be a soldier and that's, people don't see that. People don't see that. How long are you away for your wife and stuff at a team? Nine months to six months, all depends on the tour. Yeah, it's a long time, especially for somebody to wait for you as well and somebody to have your back like that shows that we spoke earlier and you say it's like a gift from God, basically, like, do you think you would still be here, Craig, if you never had your misses? No. No, I I think about suicide all the time, all the time. I wake up in the morning thinking about it and I think the reason, there's a few reasons why I've never gone through with it, one, because of my wife, second, because of my dog and thirdly, somebody's got to find me and if somebody finds me, I've infected them with my misery even when I'm gone, somebody else is suffering because they need to find me. Yeah, it's a heavy stuff like that, Craig, man. Yeah. Do you not sleep well? Drugs, all to do with drugs. Drugs make me sleep, I take it and we, and within half an hour I'm out and if I don't take it, I'm walking around the house, wandering, checking the curtains, checking the windows, checking the front door, there's so many times, you know, looking, appearing, I don't sit down and then me and my wife don't sleep together. I sleep in separate beds because I have really bad night terrors. I end up hitting her or pushing her out of the bed or kicking her. So, she's best off sleeping on her own, but it's not, we still love each other as much at that time, you know, still have our times together. That's a strong woman, but to be accepting all that, it just shows you the true love there, that she's accepted who you are, what you've done and what you're trying to achieve, but let's say a lad by one of you will change lives, this interview will change lives, let the strength to be still here, to carry on, that shows you you kind of carry, you're clearly a fighter, which is inspirational, like nobody realises the depths of what it's like to be in the British Army or any army, whatever it is, like it's not just your own sacrifices mentally, but it's the other people around you who are also sacrificing, like losing brothers, even people losing relationships, losing their life, like it's mad to what actually goes on and you probably not even touch the surface of what you've actually went through, but so seeing you're trying to get asleep and stuff, you said you'd need to listen to music as well. Yeah, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, but I have a voice in my head that says I'm vile and it's not my own voice, it's somebody else on my right side, it's constantly there all the time. Now I got blown up on tour, I got shot in the helmet or on the right side, so I don't know if that's something to do with it or anything, I don't know, but this voice, all it says is that I'm vile, that's all it says, you're vile, you're vile, you're vile, and then the medication I'm on dulls it down, but it's still there, you know, and Sundays you end up believing it and you become depressed, you become down. I call it being sad, I say to my therapist who I see, I say I feel sad, so, so sad, and I can't, I can't shift it, can't shift this sadness, can't, can't find an end to it, really, and I miss, I miss me, I miss who I was, I miss the laughing, I miss the joking, I miss the gone me, the gone, the person that has gone, I miss him, to this person I'm, I don't, my wife has to force me to shave in the mornings, you know, because I have big beard, massive hair, because I can't look in the mirror, because I hate the person that I see, and I'm very hard on myself, I'm very hard on myself, you know, but I take every day as it comes, I still get up at four in the morning, I go training, you know, I go to work for nine hours, I come home, I pack my stuff for the next day, and some days I think it's eat, sleep, repeat, train, eat, sleep, repeat, train, work, this, and it gets me not on us, but I've got a strong person behind me, you know, and she pushes me forward all the time. When did you feel as if you started losing who you were, was it after you started doing your missions and killing people, or was it when I got blown out? Do you remember the ice wall I mentioned? Yeah. That's when it shattered, that shattered me. When was that? Believe it or not, it was my last Afghan tour, and it was probably five weeks into the tour, I hit a 30 kilo anti-tank mine in my vehicle, I broke both my arms, gave me a brain injury, I'd get migraines and all that, my hips are knackered. Yeah. And this is the strength of the army, they had me in cast for six weeks, I couldn't even wipe me own arse, I had to rely on Tanya to do everything, and I was out for six weeks. They took the cast off, you know, you feel a bit free with it, and then they made me do 10 press-ups and they sent me back out to make sure my arms were strong enough. Sent you back out? To work? Yeah. And I was doing more missions, I didn't feel right in my head, didn't feel right. So when the thing started, you'd become a different person from the kid that you were 10, 20 years ago? Yeah, I was more quiet, angry, never rang Tanya, never spoke to her, never spoke to her. Why? I don't know why, just you just don't want to be on your own, you know, and I never really spoke to anyone really until all the death threats started happening after the tour, and I spoke to the MO Mudderclaw and I was going, I'm in shit state, I'm broken, I'm broken. The ball started rolling and I was doing exercises after the tour, you go and exercise after, and you do low level training. But I was fighting in them exercises like I was still in Afghan, you know, like one of the squadrons would be the enemy and you're fucking cable tying them, you're pushing them around, you're going over the top, instead of being low level, I couldn't picture, I couldn't separate it. Is that because you've had so much conflict for years that you were just so used to it? Does part of you so conditioned to that that you actually miss it, Greg? I miss it to this day now, it's been eight years. If somebody phoned you around and says, look, we've got a job for you. I doubt, I doubt. If China kicked off now and they wanted people under 50 to rejoin, I'm fucking, I'm at the front of the queue. I doubt. You know how much it destroys you mentally and you're just willing to is that that, what is that then? Adrenaline, is it freedom? What is it you're battling? What is that feeling then? Euphoria, what is it? It's knowing what I'm doing. Yeah, it feels as if you've got a purpose. Yeah. It's like when you leave I work in a job now, I won't tell what it is, but I work in a job now I'm happy in that job and they treat me well at the job you know, and they're aware of my ailments and they give me extra time to rest and stuff like that. If I have a really shit day, they're really good, really kind people. If I didn't have that, that specific job can you imagine me working in Tesco or Sainsbury's just going down there and saying, what did you do? I was a sniper. 16 years. I think you have a qualified for stacking shells. Why am I? You know, and fair enough, I spoke to a gentleman in America last week and he said that majority of Special Forces guys have trouble finding employment in America Delta Force Navy Seals because they saw their dental in their life and they've got nothing on their CV. I've got nothing on my CV, I was a sniper. I was in the household cavalry for so many years I'm a sniper. That's it. Big blank space to where I am now. Protecting people saving lives and what you've done, man, is second to none. It's admirable. What was that word? Admiral. Admiral. But what you've achieved, I'm blown away by your story about what you've actually went through. I know wars and conflicts, but if the world was a great place there wouldn't be any, but there is. Somebody needs to protect people and you were that guy at the forefront to do that. It's unbelievable what you've actually went through and it's scary what you actually have to battle coming out as well. How long did you serve? 23 years. And after that, it was just a case of it was half an hour and to say, it was a big argument. You get put on to, like, where wounded soldiers go and you just get away from your discharge. Why did you get discharged? PTSD, severe PTSD, adjustment disorder, brain injury, hips. I just couldn't focus anymore. More PTSD and more anything else. Did you want to stay on? Yeah, I thought. But you can only go a certain distance. There would be one point in my life where I had to leave the army. You know what I mean? I think I'd be happier serving my time knowing I'd done my full time. 22 years is the time that you do. I'd done 23 because I was getting discharged at the time. So I would have been discharged at the army at some point anyway, but it's just a fact of how it went around doing it. You know. I remember watching the film American Sniper. Did you just remind me of that man? Just Carl. He was a really nice guy. You met him? Yeah, I met him in America. That film is basically based on you as well. Do you watch that film and see a lot of your... I've never watched it. Yeah, I can't really watch war films. I'm either correcting them or I just can't watch it. I find things emotional. I cry. I can't advert the horse. You know, I cry when I see the RSPC adverts on telly. When I see a comedy show and somebody's serious on it, I start crying. It's weird. You just can't control your emotions. When did that start? When I got blown up. So it's all stemmed from then? Yeah. Did you think you'd just open up a doorway? That you've blocked out for so long? Yeah, I've blocked out the doors all the stuff that I've seen. This ice wall's been holding it all back and I've just been cracking on. And now I'm now I'm forced to wear a mask. I wouldn't say forced but I wear a mask because I believe this is how I think that you infect people with you misery. So you don't want to be around sad people. The only time I take it off is when I'm at home and my wife sees it and she understands. And it's good because my wife when I say I'm sad or depressed my wife went for about depression for a few months and she says to me now I know what it feels like, Greg. I know it probably not to the extent I know what it feels like to be sad, to be depressed and it's nice to understand it, you know. Because we've all had moments of depression. I've had my depression as well where I don't have anything to block it out from, drinking drugs externally but I'd imagine that everybody's levels of depression are different now hearing your stories I think like fuck me, it's understandable what you battled and what you went through and then your wife being there as well at least your sidekick to then help you understand to be there and somebody needs that like a shoulder to cry on basically now you say you're emotional but that's a sense of relief as well you'll probably feel a bit better after a good cry but when you got discharged what was your life like then did you feel used, did you just upon in a game or did you feel angry or did you think do you know what it was timing was just a number, all you are is a number as soon as you leave that regiment somebody else takes your place and you're just a number and then you leave the army I've missed it 8 years and I still missed it to this day now I still fucking missed it people daydream you know when people daydream and they daydream about holidays they being on or holidays are going to go on I daydream about the shit stuff that's what I daydream about scarred for the army but yeah I still missed it so much do you feel as if you're in more of a war zone now than you were in your actual in a war zone it's different, a different war this is a mental war more than a physical war you know but it's like I was going to say oh yeah about civilian PTSD to an army PTSD I can never work it out when somebody says oh yeah I've got one over by a car now I've got PTSD in my head I couldn't I couldn't work it out it might be by car and you've got PTSD I've got fucking PTSD I'm the fucking one that should be fucking it took me a long time to think hang on a minute yeah fair one you probably have hit by a car do you understand what I mean it took me a long time to learn the comparisons against both of them it's levels to it but depression is depression everybody's sees the world differently and has been through more difference levels of trauma which is scary do you have people to talk to people you can rely on and trust and open up fully and let it out or do you still feel alone yeah very much so I tried to go to organisations to charities and stuff like that if you've got complex PTSD adjustment disorder and other stuff wrong with you these charities are useless these charities only give you six sittings so you have six appointments to go to and then you can't have any more appointments and you have to apply within six months or a couple of months time to go and see them again but in that couple of months time you can be strung up in a tree somewhere see what you're battling now does part of you ever feel like you wish you would have died onto her yeah yeah I wish I lost a limb or something people can't see the mental health in me but when you say I got blown up in automatically look you up and down to make sure you've got all your limbs on you you know I'd rather lost my limbs than have mental health issues was there not a time you phoned your masses as well because you thought you were going to die yeah I went to a place it's called the Pijok in Iraq and basically this outbuilding it's only ran by about say 18 blokes and they were we were guards in the prison and from 11 o'clock at night to 5 o'clock in the morning fucking gates of hell would open and they would come from everywhere they'd be like monkeys they'd be just piling up throwing everything got to the point where one day at night it was overrun we were getting overrun from north west east south everything they would come from everywhere and it got so bad we were pissing on the barrels of the machine guns the gym piece because they were getting so hot we were pissing on the barrels trying to cool them down we were using we ran out of gun oil so we started using cooking oil to fucking and I remember when you on tour you have a sat phone to ring your paradigm phone it's called and you have it and you get a little card with a number on it and you get a certain amount of minutes each month you get a new one you just type in the number because you have 8 minutes left and then you can ring your misses and where the sniper hide was when me and my mate were the phone was just down there and it was red like the bat phone and then we were we were getting we were getting smashed and I climbed down and I phoned her up and I said I love you yeah I know I said I love you too everything's alright everything's alright and I said to her I'll ring you in the morning promise you I'll ring you in the morning everything's fine it was what noise it was a bit drama at the moment everything's fine then I put the phone down then I rang you in the morning see me getting through that there was a river of time okay I'm going to give it all up I'm trying to make a life with my wife I was you're just so in it that you couldn't leave it was always army first 10th to 2nd boys and even if she would say that it was always army first every course that I done I try and get top student all the courses that I try to do because I wanted to strive to be better you know and I put people that go a mile you know to do good course work to do this I'll do 20 fucking miles try and strive to be better you know we tried for children we tried for kids we never worked IVF stuff like that we tried never worked for us and Tanya said I think it's a blessing for what you're going through now I doubt if we had a cup with the child to be honest with you because I remember a story years ago that soldier was in Headley Court and it's where the wounded soldiers go and it's where help the hero started from and he was begging them not to let him go home not let him go home you can't go home you can't go home and they said you're fine there's nothing wrong you got PTSD you got this everything's fine you need to go home he went home and shook his baby to death and that sticks with me that story does you know and that's when Tanya said it's a blessing probably that we never had a child yeah so do you even feel and think that sometimes like what can go wrong so everyday is a battle to try and stay sane even though you probably feel as if you're going insane yeah and that's where the mask comes in where beyond that mask you're screaming you just take it off you put it on and you're nice and happy and people accept you for who you are have you ever tried to take your own life Craig? yes I have I tried to shoot myself in America my wife went back to England and I got a Heckelham cock 45 big old gun and took all the rounds out of it and I was just practicing where I'd put it in my head my mouth my eye socket and I put it so far in my mouth I was choking on it gagging on it because I just wanted to fucking do it I was practicing just clicking it clicking it and I put one round in cocked it put it in my mouth remember it's saliva was coming out and I was just and my dog looked at me Betsy and she was moving her head back and forth and I was just staring at her for ages and I had to pull the trigger back and I was going back and I stopped I believed she'd saved my life and then there's been other times thinking out why can't I do it why can these people do it and I can't am I a coward am I why why can't I like to scream why can't I fucking do it why I'm hurting I'm in fucking pain why can't I fucking do it I know one reason that I said before somebody's got to find you but then you've got to look at the message who is there to support you your dog you don't really think of them at the time you don't there's no consideration there for them first one to say that there's no consideration at the time I've wrote pills you know no consideration you just want it for yourself you just want to be free of that pain you're clearly here for a reason but I like the people who message you for help and inspiration you're clearly a fighter you always strive to be the best and everything you've ever done you've been the best the pain that you're going through I'd imagine there's not many people that's went through what you've seen and done what you've done to them to be still sitting here and still being open and honest you feel it fucking ending you feel it going crazy you feel like getting back into a war zone because that's where you'll find your peace like it's mad to what you've went through but you're still here like the messages you receive like this aren't of your fucking changed lives I do a lot of homeless work back in Glasgow the majority of men on the street are veterans and it's sad to think that they're willing to fight and die for their country but then nobody's willing to fight and die for them like it's heartbreaking that people can let my granddares and stuff great granddares whether in World War II and stuff and listen as much as we'd love to think we want peace in this world somebody has to do these jobs and I love my great granddares for the few years that I met them but he really struggled back then with alcohol and stuff that you've not went down that route of getting drunk and trying to get angry just trying to fight the pain of trying to become a better person understand what you've done and trying to quiet in the mind and it's a lot to put on man it's a lot of pressure on yourself consistently what you do not to think that you're good enough then you could have done better and done this and that but this is what you've done brother and it's trying to kick on and trying to I don't know I'm speechless of your story brother like that's not normal for me usually I'm a fucking gift to the gab and make you feel at ease for what you've achieved and what you've done but like I say you're still here to tell the tale and people who've been watching this will be thinking fuck me like it's unbelievable what you've actually went through and still been here to tell the tale like telling your story I'd imagine it brings back a lot of emotions for yourself yeah I'll have to take a few minutes off this just to compose myself because it brings back a lot of stuff only like talking about it only feels like yesterday I left only feels like yesterday you know I think also it's a camaraderie you miss brotherhood I've had a doubt I've had a doubt still now people watch at me from the past only a wad message here and they don't speak to me for a few months after that and then again a little message it never end you know it's a camaraderie it's brotherhood what comes close to when you feel you're happiest when I feel happy yeah now I'm not happy 24-7 sad I had a week of bliss three weeks ago I thought fuck now I feel pretty good and Tanya said to me she goes I've seen different I said yeah I feel different this week I feel alright I want to solve my therapist and I sat there and it's for an hour and I said to him I go because I feel pretty good this week you know and he went okay talked me about it so I talked him about it and the session last half an hour and I thought I've got nothing fucking more to say I feel okay you know it hits you twice as fucking harder the next week and the week after that and then this week twice as harder do you think that's why then you're maybe scared to be happy because you think you shouldn't be happy and you know there'll be a calm down after it probably it's not yeah probably but you are allowed to be happy brother I know you are I've got faults in my head I've got this voice in my head I've got this I've got that I suppose Tanya makes me smile she makes me smile but happiness I'm being happy for a long time I think I'm in that rut because I haven't been happy for a long time I'm just stuck in that guy going along taking every day as it comes yeah you don't know what it really feels like I'm not happy anymore like you said you lost that connection who you used to be the guy who used to laugh and joke but for what you've done and what you went through it's understandable but you're identifying with it that you can make adjustments you're identifying that you had that burst of happiness and it's made you feel sad I believe happiness isn't a 24-7 thing anyway it's you get a little burst when you exercise and stuff after a good session it gives me about half an hour before happiness it's contradiction really I spoke to my I talk about my therapist because I really talk to him about stuff and I said some days I sit here and I'm very contradicting I contradict myself there's me saying I'm never happy but then after the gym after a good workout I feel alright but it doesn't last long so I might as well take that as that half hour and then the rest of the day just fucking miserable so that half hour gets deleted out so it doesn't really fucking count do you feel guilty if you're happy yeah I think there's stuff that I need to sort out in my head before I can be happy but you're willing to work at it you're that fairy post you're taking medication you're doing things to try and find something you get tired of it you get tired of taking medication you get tired of seeing a therapist you know and I pay a therapist out of my own pocket because these charities are no good and then I think to myself I've been seeing him for three years now yeah three years got me three years back in the UK and I and then I some days I feel I can't afford him this month can't afford him this month but yeah it's still going don't you is that what you feel let down then for everything you've done Craig to then being kind of shat on that's it and these charities they go yeah we help you like combat stress is offered to the name Bob they've offered to take me on and I said to my therapist I'll be gleaming yeah because they got massive windows of opportunity for everything yeah they give me six sessions and then what I'll be it six sessions you get okay so I've left my therapist I've been seeing for three years to come here for six sessions for what and I still feel exactly the fucking same you know there's one organization I went to go to just to sit there with the woman I'll go what am I here for I'm just sitting here because I want you to talk you're the therapist yeah to make you angry yeah very very fucking angry there was a famous picture famous picture which I've got I'll show you later members of parliament it was you know the famous picture of the green seats or down the side you've got the speaker down the front packed standing room only it is absolutely fucking packed you could not sit down standing room only what do you reckon MP's wages there's a next picture next to it with four people suicide with veterans that hit home that hit its own that nobody fucking cares no one cares no one cares and they say they do things they say they do that they say they do that they don't follow it up they don't follow it up not at all is that why it's been so hard over the last few years when you've been discharged massively what do you think should be put in place Craig for veterans and people who serve their country housing stuff like that for veterans especially the homeless people like helping more giving more opportunities job opportunities and there's I remember I spoke to this lady and she said there was a company out there that gives veterans jobs I was like brilliant and then I heard about soon as they hire me they hired me and I think gleaming I've got a job now I'm stacking shelves brilliant love to it and one day I have a wobble and they can't handle it I'm out of my year or I've taken a sick day because I'm depressed I'm out of my year you know they say they do things and then on the flip side when everything goes quiet they put you off to the sideline all the time so you just feel used that 23 years of fighting for your country saving lives and try to do what you're doing to then see you later there's nothing out there there's nothing out there and many people build things up and do things like have a weekend away that's only a weekend isn't it it's only a weekend of being free you've got to go back to your normal life haven't you it's just sad to think that like we spoke earlier about the homelessness like veterans man guys who have wanted to die and help people and try to save lives to then being shot on which is sad do they have any regrets from doing what you've done Sniper do you wish you'd never done it would you change anything I wouldn't have changed anything I would have put a point myself in a different situation instead of getting blown up so I've still got that ice wall you know I wouldn't have done what I'd done but I made the decision and I went with it what about when you wrote a book I did yeah the longest kill how was that for you because I know a lot of people write books and they feel as if it's therapy I wrote it just to put people right they had me lying down they had me doing this they had me doing things I just wanted to put them right about the shot but I just couldn't put one chapter in so I had to write about my life you know and then it works out alright yeah it was good writing I wrote another book and it's other books about my mental health I write in a book and it's a leather binder Tanya got at me and it's got a lock on it and in that book there's the most vilest things that I think about horrible things it is a fucking book and I got pages of that in there I've got pages of my mental health everything what soldiers go through no one would touch it because it's too it's too the bone you know it is a truth but no one would touch it because it's too the truth you know no one wants to know about that person who's close to suicide and the thoughts that are having there's no one that ever contacted you to turn your life into a film no I lie actually I had one guy reach out on my Instagram he said he ever done a film screenplay on it I said no never it should be a film it should be out there far and wide but your lad by one of you with 7 million views in just a few months that is unbelievable that the raw emotion what you actually go through people think sniper me personally I don't know a sniper but prior to meeting you I thought that would have been a cool job having a gun fucking in the army shooting people and you think cool but now you know the extent to actually fucking hear that what you've went through and the battles that you had going through is tough and you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy what you have to battle for every day Craig it's unbelievable that nobody sees that the guys at the forefront who are risking their life every day leaving their family and doing what they do you take your hat off to these guys it's inspirational that they're willing to sacrifice their life to try and protect others but then the sad thing is nobody's there to risk their own life to protect them when they come back that's the fucking heartbreaking thing that's where you can see why you'll be angry at all that what the fuck am I gonna do now you're just kind of left out limbo to figure it out on your own do you feel as if that's where you thrive more though when you're alone and you can try and figure it out and sort it out or do you think you can't sort it out some days I feel like I can't sort it out then I have to speak to Tanya I have to reach out to her even when she's working she's a little part time job she's there you know when I'm screaming and shouting and making no sense on the phone because I can't breathe because I'm such in a fucking state you know she calms me down there's other times where I like being on my own I like going to the woods sitting there and just contemplating doing stuff doing stuff from my hands flint napping I like flint napping I like making spoons I like doing weird things with wood you know but yeah I like being on my own how's the response being for you after the land-by-bow overwhelming overwhelming I started off with an Instagram page with just a thousand followers you know it's gone up to 9,740 at the moment followers and I spoke to every single one of them yeah and because Tanya said that's important every time somebody messaged me or messaged me back and they can't believe it they're going oh my god I can't believe you just messaged me oh and they just go on and I just put a thumbs up where I go thanks for your kind message it means a lot to me mate thanks for that does that make you feel a little bit better understanding that you then become an inspiration for people to give them light because a lot of people it's hard to say that there's levels of trauma but what you've actually been through what you've actually witnessed what you've actually seen with your own eyes like then people go fuck me like he's still here to tell the tale so it gives other people hope that you're still here battling and you've been fucking truly open and honest about your battles and struggles which is so important like a big strong man for yourself you've seen you walking along the street you'd think fuck me he's a strong guy like you probably wouldn't think anything but then you actually sit down with you and get to know your story you think wow that people don't know what people are battling internally but when people are reaching out to you does it make you understand okay I have got a purpose do you see other people see the world definitely and push on when you're struggling I didn't want it to overwhelm me with all these messages but it does overwhelm you and you feel that you have to yeah you have to you have to answer and you have to respond to them and I segregate it I segregate my problems with helping others you know if you had a problem I'd help you deal with it but in a way I've got a mask on and because I'm dealing with my own problems and beyond that I'm screaming you know and when I've separated from you and gone we sorted yeah thanks Craig thanks for doing that brilliant walk away I've still got my issues I've still got my problems you know do you feel as if you've been constantly helping everybody though more than actually trying to help yourself over the last 20 years which is good because it takes me off that suicide roller coaster you know it takes me off that thinking of the thoughts I have all the time what's your plans for the future then Craig I'm moving forward I've opened a survival school called Maverick Survival it's got a website I couldn't go in what's that about do you know what it's about getting away I said about getting away for the weekend you haven't got your problems but to get away and having that respite from stress and everything is the way forward and everything's provided for you I've paid for everything you know I've got a wood block I've got 57 acres to hand and you just go there we make spoons, mallets, we skin trout, we eat trout made from meals we go tracking, foraging everything to do with survival school we do axe work and stuff like that then we do a bit of flit napping I've just brought a little forge that you can make our heads out of nails and stuff like that so everything's all hands on so you forget you forget and then my therapist Ross he said if you've got anyone with dramas he comes down the second night and he talks to them so there's always a lean post there for them as well and once they've gone I'm not saying goodbye to them I'm actually saying we're mates stay in contact 9,740 I'm still in contact with them all but that's amazing then that people are coming to do those things and it'll be taking them away and helping them that's an amazing thing to do how can people get involved with the website just do the websites up and running it's called the website and there's different dates pick a date email me we'll have a chat and figure out payment and stuff like that it's shut down at the moment because I'm having a double hit replacement in November it'll be open again in the new year but you can still book and prior in advance do you think that's a little added pressure on you getting a hit replacement you know you're not able to train and stuff yeah I worry about my mental health because obviously training is a big thing for me since I was during the army train train train you know and then getting my hips done is going to be a big thing but my therapist said he'll come out of my house which is beyond and what he does but he's saying we can sort stuff out which is good but that shows you that you have great people around you then do you not mean that you have got something but this thing but you get blinded by it depression, PTSD the sadness overwhelmed you I always say if you had a duvet cover on the floor one was black and one was white and the white one was happiness everything to do with god knows what light into your life is depression, darkness evil, suicide and you pick that duvet up and you throw it over yourself and it's black inside and you can't see anything that's what depression, that's what sadness is you know and you can take it off but no one's going to throw that white one on you keep throwing that black one on you that's what it feels like because you've been through an operation as well a few weeks ago with the finger when I got blown up with these in my hand and it just got worse and worse and worse to the point where my hand was like that so I decided to cut the finger off to give me that release so I can still use it it's still sensitive I've got a trapped nerve in the scar but yeah wife hates it it's my wedding ring finger so see me before we finish up ceiling you're on a mission what food and stuff are we eating rations but we end up eating they call them dog biscuits the biscuit browns and the fruit biscuits because they clog you up they're designed to make you constipated so if I eat rations all the time like boiling the bags I'll be shitting all the time so the best thing is just to eat the biscuits to tick you over what's the longest time you've waited for to take a shot? probably 72 hours what? a bit uncomfortable it's like giving birth if birth was not giving life yeah but for anybody watching just now brother that's maybe struggling and battling and they think that they want to throw themselves off the fucking roof what advice would you give for them? talk talk to yourself talk to someone you know I battle it and at the end of the day it's not worth it it's not worth it you need to talk to someone you know or reach out to me on my instagram and I'll talk to you you know by all means I've got time if you ring me at 12 o'clock 3 o'clock in the morning I'll pick up that phone and I'll talk to you it shows you're kind of character that you are that you're still battling but still willing to help other people brother that I just don't like people suffering I'd rather suffer for them than watch people suffer just go through the pain they are going through I'd rather get in then go right you're done I've got it in me I've got it in me because I'm strong enough to do it that just shows you're character or do you feel as if you're always trying to take everybody else's pain away and that's exactly what you're doing is clogging it is holding on to everybody's pain that you've always tried to be the leader that everybody's came to you and you've took away all their pain whether you've suppressed it all do you know what I mean for you even going through your battles and still wanting to help other people just shows you the kind of guy that you are and listen it's been an absolute honour to meet you today and for you coming on and telling your story and laying it on the line this will help people in fucking mass numbers I don't know if you understand that how important this is today that to show people what you go through what you're battling yet you're still here you've been totally honest about your demons and but the amazing thing is that you're still willing to help people but for coming on today I'm telling you stories I've thoroughly enjoyed it man you're a true inspiration and you should be proud of everything you've done thank you for having me God bless you and I look forward to see what you do for the future check out more of my podcasts on the right and be sure to like share and comment your thoughts on this week's podcast thank you