 One of the most brilliant and courageous actions conducted by battalions since World War II. That's how the battle of Goose Green was officially described today. And we heard the Defence Secretary, John Knotts, at the time, telling the whole world that Second Battalion of Power Sheet Regiment was poised ready to attack the settlement of Goose Green. And the Harriet Pilots said, don't worry about the Superintendors. 600 British paratroops managed to capture more than twice their own number of Argentines. Spud, how are you, brother? Pretty good, buddy. Pretty good. I've got a message in front of me. What do I do with that? Got it. Okay, yeah, start again. I've got rid of it. That's okay. Was it saying, are you talking to that handsome Mr. Thrill today? Yeah, Mr. Royal Marine, they said, that warrior, that warrior of truth. Yes, it's funny. Spud, obviously, like yourself, I'm really proud to have been a Royal Marine, and it meant a real special part of my life. But I know we're not going to talk about this, but the whole global sphere at the moment means that every time people ask me for advice on the Royal Marines, I have to add the caveat, like, do you really know what you're going in? Yeah. And I hate doing it because I don't want to steal any young person's dreams. But it's a crazy world, and I think very few people see, you know, the deeper implications of everything we do, you know, we mean. When I talk to the young lads in the regiment up here, or in Paris, or some of them want to fancy joining, I say, well, or they're in, I just say, look, lawyer up. And they say, what do you mean lawyer up? It's a naive. And I said, you've only got to look back to Dennis Hutchinson. You know, 70, 70-year-old man being hounded by the government which they could have stopped. And he actually died when he was on trial in Northern Ireland. Absolutely disgusting. So, yeah, I tell him to lawyer up. And of course, when we served, it was a different time, different politics. It was less complicated, a lot, a lot, a less complicated world. And in particular, the Falklands War was probably the last straight war. From my end anyway, that we ever fought. I know there was shenanigans dying on the back with the searching for the fifth Exocet missile that the French had sold the Argentinians and stuff like that. And that was that's quite a good story in itself. But for my part, being a grundoon on the ground, being in the Paris Regiment, that's where my story, I can tell my story from. Yes, and we're going to do that. So, Spud, your friends at home, Nigel Spud, Ely, was two parrots down in the Falklands. We're going to come on and talk about his goose green experience. Nigel famously went on, well, not famously, because these guys like to keep it all quiet. But when it's fair to give this man the credit, he's due that he joined the special air service, which certainly makes you a minority elite on this planet. But you've just released a book, goose green. What was your reason for that, Spud? Well, I'd written a screenplay about my experiences of goose green. And we were meant to start shooting that in February, March, 2020. That was started, but then COVID kicked in. But I'd already started the book roughly the same time. It took me four years to put together these stories of the one battle, the particular battle, the battle for goose green. And I went down the country interviewing over 200, but I eventually narrowed it down to 114 guys. And then I took 64 testimonials from them, which equates in the book over 330 stories and vignettes about their particular experience of goose green at the beginning, during the battle and after. And when I say after, I mean way after, even today. So I've interviewed them about their experiences, their post-traumatic stress. Some of them have it bad and some don't have it at all. So that's basically what it is. And for your viewers and listeners, goose green, the battle for goose green was 40 years ago. It was 40 years ago on the 28th of May. And it was the decisive battle, but we didn't know that at the time. It was the first victory and two parrots went on to get a second victory while it's rich. But the book focuses on the guys and not necessarily the parrots, the marines, the Royal Marines, the civilians on board the ship, the Norland, which was the roll on roll off ferry, which took two parrots down. And generally it's a book you can pick up and put down because the way I've laid it out in chronological order, but they're short stories. I think the longest one is of an officer, Captain Farah, who you know what the officers do, but he's very succinct in his narrative and I deliberately interviewed from Captain Down. I didn't do the company commanders a major and above. Purely because they've told their story so many times and quite rightly so, that their stories needed to be told from a command level. But I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty, the business end of it all and from Captain Down is where it happens. The only provider I got from that was of course Chris Keeble, a major Chris Keeble who took over the battalion when Colonel H Jones got killed for the battle for Darwin Hill, which was the vicious battle just before we went into Goose Green. Yes, and doesn't everybody remember that moment in time? Everyone is old enough to remember it, it was a shocking moment, wasn't it? For the parrots to suffer the loss of their boss and then just to get over it and keep fighting was just... Of course, before the day before on the 27th, I mean, before that we'd been on Sussex Mountains, freezing our arses off for four or five days, seeing the Navy get pummeled. I mean, it was for a young paratrooper, a young soldier on that mountainside, looking at our great Royal Navy getting pummeled by the Argentine Air Force was awful to see that because we were brought up to believe the Royal Navy ruled the world and here we saw these ships getting burned and Type 42 destroyers and then we heard that the Atlantic conveyor got bombed with all our kit on and helicopters and all the Arctic kit was on and restaurants and it was just a dreadful time and we were going down with Trenchfoot, some of the lads were going down with Trenchfoot, frostbite, been exposed to the elements and Colonel Jones says we've got to get off this mountain. And all due respect to Brigadier Julian Thompson, General Thompson now who was the Commander Brigade, who is the Royal Marine sort of said to Jones, you've got to go, you've got to get off the mountain and that's what we did. We ended up in a place, after about four days, we ended up in a place called Committee Creek House which is several k's short of goose green, that was our objective. We were going to attack on a six phase plan and we were going to attack early hours of the 28th and hope to be in goose green by sort of 10, 11 o'clock which was 10 o'clock in Fulton Islands where it's turning light. Okay, so they hoped to be there by noon anyway. But what happened on the 27th was just made people so incredulous and we heard through the World Service on the long ways radio we had 320s and we heard the Defence Secretary, John Knot at the time telling the whole world that second battalion the parachute regiment was poised ready to attack the settlement of goose green. I mean, this is 10 o'clock at night blind a girl with piss wept through, you know what it's like Chris you're fucking freezing, you don't know what's going on and you hear this through the radio and it was just unbelievable. It just made everybody so, well, pissed off really because our position had been compromised and obviously the battle plan had been compromised and poor old Dave Wood the adjutant came out of one of the briefings of Jones and he turned around to a group of guys who were in the stretcher bearer party and turned around and said gentlemen the promotional prospects of this battalion will be excellent by tomorrow meaning, you know, we've been compromised we're going to get for poor David Wood got killed he got killed few hours later. So what happened there was because I was C company C company was half the strength of the battalion of a normal rifle company normally about 120 men in a rifle company C company were the eyes and ears like a mini SAS and we were sort of Colonel Jonesy's boys if you want to put it like that and there were about 50 of us in the company and we were the patrols and the recce so we were like the mini SAS we went into the recces so my first task with C company was to go and recce eight companies start line now for people that don't know what a start line is it's an imaginary line drawn on the ground far enough away from the enemy not to get compromised but close enough to the enemy so you can attack it and effect this sort of element of surprise aspect of it all and I was point man on that one so I left about just after 10 o'clock knowing that John and I told the arches we were coming luckily it was blowing a goal I led the guys in there was a Tom private soldier 23 which is an old sweat and Ken Rainier who was my corporal he was a few years old he was in charge of the patrol he put me at point I mean he always did put me at point so we got to the start line set the start line up and we waited it took four hours for A company to be led in and in the meantime I heard these tracks and they turned out to be sort of LVTP 7s which is an American troop carrier carried about 20 soldiers but they then disappeared in the wind the attack went into a place called Burnside House the arches had sort of run off the Argentinians and then it was we then advanced as reserve company while B&D company moved on to the right flank we were on the left behind A company A company's next objective was a place called Coronation Point and Darwin Hill well that's when the battle started at Darwin Hill and it took A company up until first lights several hours fighting to take Darwin Hill and that's all detailed in the first-hand experiences of the Tom's the private soldiers the Lance Corporals and the four screws when that battle when they took Darwin Hill we advanced through a seed company as I said a small company of 50 men we went forward through their position onto a slope overlooking Goose Green the actual settlement of Goose Green now the settlement of Goose Green we didn't know SAS reports have said that it contained 400 Argentinian soldiers a lot of them and technical aircraft fitters because next to Goose Green was a runway with Picara aircraft on it now these Picaras were turbojet ground attack aircraft and I remember distinctly when we were on the Norland sailing down we got a brief by the Harrier pilots and the Harrier pilots said don't worry about the superintendars we're there below, we're above them don't worry about the mirages we're there above us we get up above them and then someone shouted well what about the Picaras sir and this pilot said don't worry about the Picaras as it turned out they were the ground troops worst nightmare because they could hover and get around the place really quick not just for the parachute regiment in Goose Green but the whole of the troops on the island they scared the shit out of us so we could see the aircraft to our right and we could see all these sort of ant-like creatures down in Goose Green and they were the arches they were the Argentinian forces they looked a bit more than 400 and in the community centre unbeknown to us at the time but it came through during the battle later on there were 119 civilians that the Argentinians had kept hostage in there for three weeks so we're all looking down it was about 12 o'clock and then the idea was was for sea company to advance straight down towards Goose Green you know, typical sort of Napoleonic style tactics and it was like a billiard table the odd fold in the grass but it was kind of it was just grass and the odd fold where you really know cover from view or even cover from fire we got the order to march once again they put me at point because Ken was a senior patrol he was a senior force group you know, I guess the boss thought we were kind of semi-professionally in our attitude towards war so they put us front so Ken put me point and we just advanced to contact as you do in an arrowhead formation that was Racky Patoon patrol Patoon went slightly left D and B company were over to our right that they had already advanced and D company's objective was the airfield B company then had to sweep B company's objective was Bocca House and then swing around behind Goose Green and hold that ground well that was the plan so we just advanced to contact and I could see we closed as we were closing you know what the drill was back then it was prepared for battle which we did before we got off we had a brew and a fag no need to camouflage because they knew they could see us, we could see them but ironically I thought why were the RG shooting at us and I thought well they probably thought that we were them and they had repelled us from Darwin Hill so that was really strange then you prepare for battle then you make sure we were ammunition all there, your web-instructs are tight you've got enough bombs on you and stuff and then you advanced to contact so basically we were advancing to contact and arrowhead formation and then you come under what they call effective enemy fire and that means that if one or two of you get killed that's not effective enemy fire you just keep advancing and then you sort of go to ground if that's the case, if the boss says get down and then you have to attract the enemy fire because they knew who we were and then you just carry on what happened to us was I could see these flapping tentage type obstacles on our route and as we got nearer, I mean I fixed a bayonet and everybody else fixed bayonets and fixing a bayonet to an SLR, an SLR particularly long weapon luckily the bayonet was quite short it was about 10 inches long so it did upset the balance of it somewhat so we advanced and then this sort of trench affair appeared with this flapping canvas top cover in the wind so I mean I just went in sort of graded it with a white force and we didn't know at the time but the white phosphorus grenades that we were issued with we called them fuse instantaneous because as soon as you threw them off within a second which normally a grenade is about three seconds is it, yeah, three or four seconds which is quite a long time because a lot of things can happen in three or four seconds but one second it doesn't give you much chance so we went in there, took them out well I took that trench out with the white phosphorus grenade and then we advanced and more trenches came came into view because as I said we're going down a slope and it's undulating and it's rolling and this folds in the ground which are kind of dead ground until you come up until you come up on them and then in the distance there was this creek and there were bridge and you can see all the Argentinians running across this bridge sort of back towards their position their defensive position we hadn't seen Goose Green by then because Goose Green was the other side of this sort of rolling terrain so we all started firing at them we all made a mad dash the arches opened up on us I mean it was just a crescendo of small arms, mortars Orlican guns, 30 mil cannons they took the Beauford guns off the ships and they were firing them at us almost in the ground roll at one point their barrels were so so low that they couldn't fire at us because we were past their point of aim they called us on the top slope so we ran like crazy and that's when plan A went all to cock and you just worked in your small little pairs or your groups of people our HQ out of 12 because on an arrowhead formation the HQ sits in the middle of the arrowhead formation about a safe distance back normally about 20 or 30 feet yards meters back depending on how big the arrowhead formation is or how wide it is the guns took them out because I was far forward along with Ken and my patrol they took out the command element which you would do anyway and only one guy survived Nigel Holmes Smith was killed only one guy survived Dave Charlie Brown that didn't get injured and he suffers today because of that he had to stay in this sort of fold in the ground with Mark Holmes Smith for about 3 hours watching this because he couldn't go back because the fire was so great the boss got it although he didn't major gen he didn't own up to getting fragged in the shoulders the rest of the signals command element went so they were all fragged and injured 1, 2, 3, 4 really badly injured quite bad I didn't know anything about this until after the battle so we're pursuing down we eventually get to the re-entrant the estuary bit where the bridge was and all the arches we crossed there and unbeknown to us at the time we were moving into what they call the pig farm and that's when the real battle started because the pig farm contained all the upturn styles of these pigs styles of these pigs which the Argentinians used as they dug holes, trenches and used it as top cover and we were fighting through there there were a couple of stone buildings and yeah it was several hours well one two three well four hours of fighting to the point where you could hear the Spanish voices just like 10 meters away the D company came in towards from our right and mingled in with us yeah it was all chaotic and there was no sort of game plan apart from advancing to Goose Green and we were taking out these trenches there was because you could hear the Spanish voices it was really off putting because you were always you were thinking where the fuck are they because the wind played tricks with you as well we took out a couple of trenches I got into a trench where there was I didn't know what it was but it was an algae there was a body underneath this poncho and I couldn't get my rifle down because it had the bayonet on because it was quite a small trench so I basically dropped down and headbutted it or whatever it was I don't know if it was if it was dead or wounded I didn't know the momentum of the battle you have to keep going and also you can't leave anything behind you see it in the old films they pop up and shoot you it's that basic it sounds awful now looking back at it but that's what it did you just have to keep going and I bashed this guy in with my helmet unbeknown to me what was going on his mate was dead in the trench there was another algae dead been shot then we came to a stalemate because we couldn't get any further because A we were running out of ammunition and B we didn't have the mount power to do it but then somebody said there was an attack going in on the schoolhouse patrols were going to put this attack on the schoolhouse and I didn't even know what the schoolhouse was but it was off to my 7 o'clock and I looked around and there it was this fucking big building it was at the time the biggest building on the island biggest building it was all made of wood so patrols put this attack in and there was Argentinians out of the windows and the guys went in and stormed it did a bit of house clearance in the meantime I fired a 66 in order to cover them on the attack but my 66 is like a it's a throwaway for your listeners and viewers it's a throwaway bazooka ok fire one and chuck it away anyway I fired it and it hit the roof of this building just sort of ricocheted off and then my mate put another one on it and said it will fire and then all these Argentinians started excuse me all these Argentinians started to come out the back and they were running down the beach side of the estuary of course the guys were running into them but later I heard there were about 80 Argentinians in that school house and when it went up we don't know how many actually survived that I know a lot of them ran back into goose greed that bought us go about two, four, four o'clock three hop-ups three in the afternoon and it gets dark about hop-ups four in the fortlands that time of year and then we had all these prisoners there wasn't so much a lull in the battle but I think we sorted out as many of the Argentinians we shot as many as we could see sort of thing but we had 20 of prisoners but the heavy arms firing hadn't died down they were still motoring Darwin Hill they were still motoring our positions artillery then they flew in special forces and then with these prisoners these two Picaras came around didn't attack came back again about 10 minutes later and one of them dropped an APARM and it actually dropped about 20 meters from me 20 no I'd say about 15 meters from me but the momentum went away from me and missed the prisoners but it singed me and it singed a couple of other guys it was that combined with John Nock telling the arches where we were that just made us I still feel it to this day just enraged us what the hell are they doing dropping an APARM it's just fucking crazy it's outlawed but that was the mentality of us I think back when we were we were morally right soldiers if that's such a phrase we were trained really well about the Geneva Convention and everything else so yeah I think narrowly missed the prisoners and then the funny thing was the aircraft the pilot just ejected now nobody shot it he didn't he later transpired that he just ejected because he didn't think he'd make it back to where he was off where he'd come from and it wasn't good screen and he floated down into our position instead weird guys were shooting at him and then somebody shot him but you don't want to start shooting people in the air you don't want to be that victim do you coming down and being shot so he landed right in our position which was absolutely bizarre he got a bit of a kick in someone took his watch off him and he's gold-plated browning and then we had a lot of wounded as I say get stuck about half before half past four and that just after that we had a lot of wounded and we had some wounded and plus the arches we probably had about 30 of wounded all over the place the actual intensity of the battle then quiet and down a bit and then the guys you focused on your own survival but you focused on your mates and at one instance my mate with John Bowland we were at the estuary just after the schoolhouse I think it was and someone he shouted he stood up and shouted we're being surrounded we're being surrounded they're coming around the back meaning these arches that were all over the place so his job turned he turned to his left and the discordious sub of one of these multi-bowl rocket launchers sliced right across his chest and took him out so he was badly injured another guy that was shot in the stomach I mean he was really badly injured and he wouldn't stop crying and screaming for a couple of hours so we had to get the and there was like half a dozen injured from the company that we put into this little dairy this stone building which incidentally had electric on it the electric was still switched on there was this single light bulb so we put all the casualties in there excuse me along with the Argentinian casualties but we couldn't get them out some of the walking wounded as it was getting last night were marched back up to Darwin Hill in full view of the enemy and then a scout pilot John Greenouch decided to break the ridge at Darwin and come down with another pilot rich walker scouts Air Corps Army Air Corps he was told not to break the ridge because you know it was crazy you'd get shot down and we don't want to lose any more aircraft but he came in under heavy fire found out where we were Paul Grundy last couple of Paul Grundy was the radio and the 2IC of our patrol he brought him in on the radio because we had comms back to Brigade because we were the Eisenhears we were the old sweats of battalion we had direct comms back to Brigade HQ and as a consequence had communications to the aircraft as well so John came in very bravely under fire at night went over us came back again Paul Geordi Grundy brought him in on the radio and I brought him in on a flash of a camera that I had I interviewed John for the book couple of years ago and he's got it in his log book so it's all been he put it all down right anyway he landed unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable the two choppers landed kicked out all the ammunition and rations they never come in empty always come in with some kit and we piled in all the casualties we put smudging one of the pods these scouts had these sort of coffins on the skids they have an undercarriage a tired undercarriage they have skids and on top of each skid was a coffin shaped box so we put smudge in the one and jock in the other and piled in as many as we could into the back of this scout and I didn't know this but it's in John's log book and I can't recall it but he said I could not take off because there was so much weight on the aircraft that he couldn't take off so he said you guys got hold of the skids on both sides and lifted the helicopter up enough so we could get enough lift just to sort of go forward but he had to go forward towards the Argentinians to get lift and that's what happened, him and Rich Walker did that and they turned around I couldn't recall that so I must have been one of the guys that was guarding and I cannot call them of it as opposed to being one of the guys on the skids but I didn't know that until two years ago apparently it's quite a famous story but I didn't know about it so what happened then when we got rid of our injured it was wounded it was kind of strange really because the firing died down the adrenaline slowed down and of course then you feel the cold and the effects of what if, what could and we were expecting a counter attack so we rifled the Argentinian bodies for any food that we could eat the officers had these little bottles of whiskey so that was we were looking for an officer to get his rations actually took their ammunition which is an important part of what was happening because their ammunition was 7.62 long and they had the better kind of weapon they had a folding stock SLR which was semi-automatic which was a better weapon than the ones we had I mean SLR you could just single shots so that was kind of good if we had been in a NATO situation 556 doesn't fit into 7.62 so we would have been fucked you know because we were really low on ammunition and well the thing was we loaded up and waited for the counter attack we'd got rid of all our casualties which is the important thing but unbeknown to us Major Chris Keeble who had taken over command as I said earlier of the battalion got hold of a couple of English speaking prisoners and sent them down with a white flag into goose green and basically said look we want your surrender and the following morning that's what happened thank god because we were on our chin straps because we had no support from anyone they couldn't get the symptoms the track vehicles up we'd run out of our mortar ammunition we had two barrels which was talking to a mortar man in the book Phil Williams he said well two barrels was enough they fired about 800 rounds through them through the two barrels he said but if we would have had four barrels we would have fired those 800 rounds quicker and probably wouldn't have been as effective so yeah so we had that we waited we had a very uncomfortable night couldn't sleep people started fires then whispers were going around you know who's made it who's dead and all that sort of talk trying to find out who was where was who we were all over the place so we didn't know who had been missing who had been killed and come first lights they surrendered and we thought okay initial reports from the SCS said that there were about 400 of these Argentinians in there but because we were the forward troops around goose green we had to keep our position we had to hold our position just in case there was some kind of counter-attack but the HQ element came in and machine guns, two paramachine guns went in as cover for the command group to take the surrender and we just gobsmacked as the actual Argentinians coming out I mean there was 20, 30 50, 100, a couple of 100 300, 400, 5 and it just came out from everywhere over 1200 and you know these lads were fighters they weren't they weren't all aircraft technicians but then again aircraft technicians are trained in firing a weapon first before they do anything else so we were astounded by them and they came out and they dropped all their weapons and there's that famous picture of all the helmets and all the rifles all in that field there that's that basically was the battle from the 10 o'clock on the 27th through to the morning of the 29th now C company was the only company really that got into goose green the others A company had to hold Darwin Hill B and D companies still had to hold their positions around goose green but because it was kind of nice because we ruled in and we actually we had some we had a cabin to ourselves which is kind of good I didn't get involved none of C company got involved with all the shaking of hands of the civilians and you know that drink the famous picture of Hank could drinking all the vodka and stuff and you know none of us in C company were really up to it we were just absolutely ghost looking back at it now I wish I'd done but your mental position at a time you're still on a war foot and you're still got this kill kill kill mentality and I can still feel it to this day 40 years on but that's what we were and we didn't drop our guard at all because we knew this was the first battle we didn't know how major it was but of course victory begets victory and because everyone that fought in that campaign needed a victory we were so demoralized that the navy weren't doing were getting hurt bad and that hurt us as ground troops that really did we were really really hurt us bad morally and the troops needed this victory they needed a moral victory the whole of the task force and the people back home needed a victory it could have been 4-2 commander Scott's guards but he wasn't it was 2-0 and we got that victory for everyone and I think that's what spurred everyone else on it can be done we can break them down all we got to do is be careful of the Argentine air force because they were just incredible pilots you never seen anything like them the bravery or the stupidity I don't know I'm sure it was bravery mate Colonel H would have been proud of you wouldn't he yeah I'm sure he would yes he was he didn't take fall slightly and as what it's somebody mentions it in the book he said that if Colonel Jones had survived contact there would be few positions there'd be a few people sacked and there'd be few open positions within the battalion and there's nothing if you've experienced war and combat a lot of people go well that's fine that's great I've had enough of that I've done my job I want to get out and there's nothing wrong in that at all other people I like myself go on and kind of because it's all that we know but kind of sort of I wouldn't say enjoyed it but found ourselves quite good at it and like I said there's other people they go well thanks very much and that's it and there's other people that realise that they didn't do anything and it wasn't for them at all and they have to live with that of course and that's the way we're all made isn't it when I spoke to Jimmy O'Connell Jimmy was free power wasn't he Mount Longdon wonderful gentleman very very nice man when I spoke to him and I said where's your sleeping bag because to me having served priorities isn't it what's going to keep you alive is a good fucking night's sleep if you can get it or going to keep you alive as in you're in minus temperatures down there and Jimmy went Jimmy said Chris we went for a fucking fight we didn't go to sleep so my question Spud is where was all like your burger and everything and all your sleeping gear yeah I mean a lot of it was stashed up on top of Sussex mountains apart from patrol company was stashed at Sussex mountains they were deployed on the task before the whole battalion moved off and since I was in a forward OP I had all my kit but all the burgers were stashed at committed Creek House yeah we fought we fought without in light order and patrols between fought without their helmets that's why you see pictures of guys in Goose screen some of the people they've got their berries on well we all carry our berries but there's a couple combat pictures of people with their berries on which is kind of it's just you can have a helmet on especially with all that fucking metal flying around I don't know how good they were at the time I think they were Kevlar some of them still have the old tin helmets but yeah no sleeping bags all our kit we were in light order and we carried everything and there's a moral to the story about all incidences in combat you carry as much ammunition as you can and water that's all you need and if you want to and if you want to carry food you get yourself a chocolate bar or something but you carry whitebait stick it in the back of your in the bottom of your webbing something doesn't take up too much this is salty isn't it there's a little bit of a taste to it and I think lessons like that do get lost especially when a lot of the military have gone mechanized now and by that I mean aircraft around in helicopters and stuff like that and they don't go too far away from the medics and you're not too far away from you've been cast of act out and there's nothing wrong in that it's just the way the warfare has developed but there's always a case when you can be caught out and you should always carry as much ammunition as you possibly can and doesn't it weigh a friggin ton yeah with these smaller ones these 556 rounds you can carry more of them but I've told that there are certain units within regiments now I've gone back to 762 because they found that although the 556 is more accurate it won't put and the Americans left this in Vietnam you know it killed the enemy but the enemy would still keep coming and could squeeze squeeze off the trigger whereas the 762 round if you hit in the shoulder it could come out your toe you know it could rip right around your body I mean it would put you down wouldn't it 762 round so a lot of the infantry units I've got a unit within 762 I know the SES have they're developing weapons with 762 yeah the it's not the UK SF the support group they use 7.62 and they reckon it's because in Afghanistan if you've got someone running towards you and they're off the red on opium or what and you hit them with 5.56 unless you it's a fatal shot they kept coming they kept coming yeah I wouldn't say 5.56 is more accurate it's the other way around 7.62 over 300 meters it's just on the target every time 5.56 you have to aim off target to take a ounce for the win to bring it on to target for you obviously benefits to both the SEAT is obviously in close battle is the ideal weapon because like you said you can swing it around and it's not going to get snagged on the other hand and the ammunition is lighter I would say it did them all right in Vietnam but then what do I know well they looked at the 5.56 wouldn't put them down just example the UK that's why now we carry the GPMG 7.62 cracking weapon and that's why the American army in the M16 and went on for a variation of the GPMG it's a cracking weapon cracking round but yeah that's 40-odd years ago for some of us it is still there the little bits are still there in the head and for others not so much for me I like to think that in research in this book made me appreciate more because I was on the front I was at the point here and made me appreciate how we got all the logistics from the echelon the ship to the A.A. echelon I appreciate it I appreciate the stretchy bearers I appreciate the medics well you do anyway but to actually listen to people's own testimony really brought it home to me and this is what this book does it's not about it's about the guys, the soldiers that fought that battle and where they are now you know it's a cracking it's the best book I've written probably because it's not about me well I tell you what mate you've just told that story I've been speechless I think everyone listening has just been utterly gobsmacked it's so engrossing and I'm really pleased but that you're that you're not suffering too much that you can just come and tell it and you know it's all in the past it's all biotherapy though isn't it of course you know we didn't know if we don't know what's normal us veterans because when we joined we were young we didn't know what we were still developing we didn't know what normal was yeah of course so friends at home look Nige's book Goose Green the decisive battle of the Falklands war by the British troops who fought it I'm literally going to get my audio copy now Spud because I find audio books tend to be easier these days although let me tell you something the audio book has been praised the narrator is Jonathan Keeble who's quite a famous audio book narrator and actor and it's been praised people that there's a couple of guys that have been shot veterans that can't read because of their eyesight and stuff and they've sent me messages saying you know if I'm fantastic really enjoyed it but what I will say Chris is I'm making a donation on the book sales to Liberty Lodge Liberty Lodge for those people that don't know is has been built by a Scottish company and it's for returning veterans to the Falklands it's like a four or five star lodge and you stay there and you pay what you think it's worth people sometimes pay little sometimes pay a lot so I want to make a donation to Liberty Lodge and they've got two four wheel drive vehicles that the families and veterans can use to travel around the island so it's kind of a rather than go to a big charity where it could possibly get lost some of it get lost in admin that's what it takes to run these big charities the Liberty Lodge I'd like to give them a check direct we'll put links for all for all of your books Spud and a link for Liberty Lodge below and of course we've got an event coming up haven't we which has been a little bit up in the air apologies on my behalf we got let a little bit let down for a venue at the last minute but friends at home Spud is very kindly going to come and speak on our Falklands Memorial evening we felt Luke and I as you know proprietors of the bought the t-shirt podcast we've done so many groundbreaking Falklands podcast there's not a lot of people really recording the stories from the guys on the ground without the kind of like the BBC narrative if you understand what I'm saying so we felt it was our duty to have a Falklands evening Falklands Q&A evening obviously the proceeds will go to to charity Spuds very kindly agreed to come and speak it's we we've got Captain Robert Lawrence from the Scots guards you've only got to say the name tumble down and everyone knows who Robert is he's going to come and speak we've got Jeff Williams from 4 to commando the taking of Harriet and Mount Harriet and Kent we've got John you who was on the Coventry when it's sunk it's going to be an emotional evening but I really think that we've got to you know we've just got to do it so so as soon as tickets are available we'll put them below our videos and we'll put them out for our social media and Spud that just leaves me mate to say once again gosh I'm in your gratitude mate for my freedom but also for speaking on my podcast you're welcome buddy I know this won't be the last time you're on the podcast so this is not goodbye for friends at home much love to you all I really really hope you were as engrossed in this as I was if you could please like and subscribe it just helps us to keep these stories alive and you know what these young men many of them teenagers went through it deserves to be remembered so thank you very much thank you Chris for your support my pleasure mate my pleasure