Another Mans Shoes
Interviews with fellow military veterans and adventurers about their experiences of war, the lows and times of hardship, joining them on their journey and how this has shaped their lives in the most extraordinary way. Comedy moments, dark humour and witty banter.
Another Mans Shoes
Overcoming Adversity: The Inspiring Journey of Royal Marine Mark Ormrod S1E9
What drives someone to push through unimaginable adversity and come out stronger on the other side? Join us as former Royal Marines Commando Mark Ormrod recounts his gripping story of resilience and transformation. From his adventurous childhood in Plymouth to the life-altering moment in Afghanistan that resulted in a triple amputation, Mark's journey is a testament to the unbreakable human spirit. Discover how his passion for action movies and the influence of family and friends led him to the military, and how he overcame the intense mental and physical challenges of becoming a Royal Marine.
Mark opens up about the unpredictable and perilous experiences at FOB Robinson in Afghanistan, sharing riveting tales of chaotic nighttime firefights and a fateful Christmas Eve patrol. Hear firsthand about the harrowing aftermath of an IED explosion, the life-saving medical interventions, and the crucial support from family and fellow Marines that became his lifeline. His story is not just about surviving but thriving against all odds, emphasizing the importance of a strong support system and unwavering determination.
As Mark navigates life as a triple amputee, he sheds light on the challenges and triumphs of rehabilitation, the energy and effort required to live with prosthetics, and the invaluable mentorship he received. Learn about his successes post-service, including his work with the Royal Marines charity, motivational speaking, and his accolades, such as being named a Member of the British Empire. Mark also shares his future plans and entrepreneurial ambitions, offering a glimpse into his dynamic life and the projects that keep him motivated, all while balancing family and personal endeavors during the COVID pandemic. This episode is an inspiring tribute to perseverance and the transformative power of resilience.
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Welcome to Another Man's Shoes with our guest tonight, mark Ormrod. Mark is a former Royal Marines commando and he joins us from Plymouth where he's going to take us through his journey from being one of the first members of the Armed Forces injured in Afghanistan in 2007. On Christmas Eve he was in an explosion and he became a triple amputee. Since leaving he's done absolute wonders. He's worked with the Royal Marines charity, he's become a motivational speaker, gone to the Invictus Games and so so much more. He's an accomplished author and also very proud that he is now a member of the British Empire, getting his MBE last year in the honours list. So tonight we welcome on Mark Ormrod.
Speaker 2:How you doing mate.
Speaker 1:All good. So we're obviously all sitting here doing our recording in lockdown at the moment. So what part of the world are you sort of hunkering in?
Speaker 2:I am in the southwest, in Plymouth, with two Fs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if anyone knows Plymouth they probably will know the accent. So we can certainly see that you're a West Country boy. So you're a West Country born and bred. That's where you've always been, is it?
Speaker 2:Born and bred Jana. Born in Plymouth. Plenty of chances to move out of the place with work and all these other things, but for some reason decided to stay. It is home, so I love it down here that's a beautiful place.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's where you like, and so what we try and do on the show is we're going to go through your journey, which, you know we're going to try and get as much of it in as we can. Obviously there might be a part two and a part three with everything that you've managed to cram in so far, but so let's sort of start off on. You're Plymouth. So what was your childhood like and your upbringing? What sort of formed you? Where were you? How did you evolve?
Speaker 2:So I'm an 80s baby, born in the 80s, raised in the 90s. You know, back when the streetlights came on is when you came in for your dinner or your mum and dad would stand on a doorstep and just scream your name. We didn't have mobile phones or pages or any of that kind of stuff back then. So I had a great childhood when I was allowed, when I came of that age out and about being cheeky, causing mischief, going on adventures. All the lads that I grew up with and went to school with around my area were two or three years older than I was. So that kind of made me grow up a little bit quicker than I think perhaps I should have, which was great. And yeah, like I said, born in the 80s, raised in the 90s. Big old action movie fan, growing up with the classics Predator, commando, bloodsport, rambo, rocky all that kind of stuff helped to mold me as I was growing, but nothing super exciting, if I'm honest. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Speaker 1:I had a great upbringing, always food on the table, always a roof over my head, always looked after, um, no hardships whatsoever really growing up that's quite interesting because one of the common themes talking to a lot of guys when we're doing podcasts and obviously through people that we meet serving in the military, is the large majority of people haven't had the best start in life and the military is kind of their family, is their way of getting away from, from what they've done, um. But it's great to know that you sort of had a good upbringing and obviously watch some fantastic action films that they just don't make as good anymore but you can't watch them again now because they're just not the same. You've got to remember them as they were, I know, I know. So we were um sort of going through your upbringing and sort of academic. How did?
Speaker 2:you do at school. I was all right man. I was that cheeky kid at school. You know I wasn't a complete tear away, but I wasn't a nerd. I worked hard, I did okay. I came away from school with 10 GCSEs nine A to Cs and 1 D, so I pretty much nailed all of them. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to pull it off. So you know, I guess the world was my oyster really. Once I left school. I could have gone to college, then on to university or you know some other sort of route, but you know, I decided the military was the place that I wanted to go.
Speaker 1:So that's obviously where a lot of your story starts. You had obviously all these options on the table. You could have joined like the RAF, you could have joined the army, but you decided to join the Marines. So is there sort of a reason you went down that route?
Speaker 2:Do you know what? Actually I did go down and apply initially to join the army. Because those lads I said that I grew up with as I was coming up to doing my GCSEs and getting ready to leave school, they had already left and a couple of them had joined the army. Some of them were over in Germany in the tank regiment and they would come home on leave and they'd always have money and they were buying new cars and all this kind of stuff and I thought you know what? I'll have a bit of that. And when you're a kid despite growing up in Plymouth where there's a huge Royal Marines footprint I just thought that if you want to be a soldier, you join the army. That's where they are.
Speaker 2:So I went down there when I was 15, I spoke to the recruiting guy, got all the paperwork, had to bring it back to show my parents obviously because of my age to get the signature, and then my dad told me that I had an uncle who did 22 years in the marines and left as a captain and he didn't live that far. He was just up, uh, between here and exeter in a place called buckfast lee. So we arranged to go up and see him one day and I remember he lived on like a, like a farm, very small. He had a horse and a big german shepherd and all this. And so I went in the front door of this barn, like cottage, you know, the kind of door with the little metal latch on it, and I opened it up and then the log fire was in there and there was this big picture frame on the wall, like a citation, with a sword on it with a green beret on the end. So it was a green beret, his green beret and his officer's sword.
Speaker 2:And he sat me down and he told me about the royal marines, a bit about his career, how the royal marines were different to the army. If I wanted to be infantry, you know what I could expect going one way or the other. And then I went back to the career center on the monday, spoke to the Royal Marines recruiter and he put in the old VHS cassette and that was it. I just saw this. You know there were guys jumping out of planes, there were guys on speedboats, there were guys skiing in the Arctic, running through the jungle, you know, up to their chest in water, patrolling out in the jungle and all that kind of stuff and I thought that's what I want to do. You know, these guys, literally they can do anything anywhere at any time and you know, being like growing up, like I did, watching all these Arnie movies and stuff, thinking, yeah, you know, I want to be like that, the ultimate all-rounder, these Royal Marine characters are the ones for me, so I went for that instead.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic Cause, it's true, isn't it? But I went to the recruitment office and he we must've watched that same VHS, it was similar time and I remember he put this on and he said you can join the army, he goes, but just go for them. Because he was actually a Marine recruiter and he was saying there's always different branches in the marines, so whatever you found, you know, if you like communications, like boats, you like mountain troop, whatever there's a different branch, you can go into all within the marine family. And I was like mate, I'm sold on this. I think there was like an sbs post on the wall or something. I was like that looks nally as fuck, so I'll have a bit of that. But then he said, yeah, great, so we'll get you on your prc. Um, you know, we'll look to get you there in six months. You can imagine like this is a 16-year-old, like six months, like screw them up, mate.
Speaker 1:So, what else you can join the Army. You'll be there next week. I was like, brilliant, sign me up. That was it. But a lot of regret is not doing the commando course and everything, because everyone you speak to you know it certainly seems like a very so it takes through the training, then sort of limps them.
Speaker 2:How's that? Oh, mate, it sucked. You know, I started that when I was 17. So as well as everything else it throws at you because it's very fast paced, like the minute you land it's baptism by fire. So it's kind of the old shock of capture routine. So you've got all that to deal with, plus the fact you're only 17 years old, you've never really been away from home before, plus the fact you're only 17 years old, you've never really been away from home before without mummy and daddy, you know.
Speaker 2:And when you first get there, you're in for the first two weeks you're in this giant room with like 60 plus men. And I was I think I was the second youngest in the troop. So I'm just like looking around, thinking what am I doing here? I'm out my depth. You know what I? I mean, these guys have all got all life experience. They're all ironing their uniform. They seem to know exactly what they're being told to do and they do it. And I'm looking around just pretending, hoping that I'm doing the right thing, just with no real idea. You know what it was I was doing. It just felt like I was drowning for those first two weeks and every night I went to bed I thought to myself, because I only live 45 minutes away, I thought I could just jump on the train now or, you know, ring someone to say come get me, I'm done. I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2:But you just break it down. You know it's. It was back when I did. It was 30 weeks long. I think it's somewhere in the region of 36. Now they keep extending it. But you can't look at it that way. You can't look at it as one big chunk of 30 or 36 weeks. You've got to break it down month by month, week by week, two weeks, whatever works for you, day by day, and just tackle it one bite at a time. You know what I mean. Otherwise it all becomes too much and you just come crashing down.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the best bits of advice you can give to anyone who's doing anything difficult. It doesn't matter if it's military, it could be schoolwork, whatever it is. Don't look at the whole picture. Just take one segment of it. Just take a chunk out of that, move on. Don't dwell on what you've just done. Get on to the next event, do that, move on and um so your event's up there. There's some quite difficult. You finish your training, is it what?
Speaker 2:do they call? Is it bottom field? Is that the one? Everyone?
Speaker 1:talks about, I mean there's. So there's a bottom field assault course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which you get smashed on regularly once you get to a certain phase in training. But then when you do all the uh, I guess it comes in three phases. It might have changed now. When you get to the latter phase, that's called the commando phase. Yeah, that's when you start doing your commando tests. So your nine mile speed march, your tarzan assault course, your bottom field assault course, uh, endurance course, 30 miler, you know all that kind of stuff. But again, you know you turn up at day one and you have a go at that. You've got no chance. But it all builds up and it's all progressive and by the time you get to that point you're more than capable of doing it physically, as long as you can hang in there mentally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and of the original 60-odd guys that started how many made it through through to the end.
Speaker 2:There were 62 to start and 16 of us, what we called originals, who started on day one and made it all the way through to the end without injuries or failing tests and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:That's a massive attrition rate, isn't it? Just go show how hard it is and how well respected and earned it is to get that green beret at the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy, I mean, and it sounds this is going to sound really harsh and a little bit sick. But every time that I was getting to the point where I wanted to quit, I would just figure out a way to convince myself not to. And you knew everyone around you was feeling the same. And then one person would put their hand up and quit and I almost used to feed off it. I'm like, yes, now I have to stay a bit longer.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Yep, definitely. Everyone always says you might have done a difficult course. You're always at that point when you've got a low, but you might just keep yourself quiet.
Speaker 2:no-transcript, something about me and so I know, I remember there was this one exercise that we were getting regularly going called big x, right, and everyone was just sat in our grots waiting for the transport to take us out of camp and drop us into I think it was Woodbury Common we were going and it basically involves you getting in full Cat 3, romeo, nbc suits with respirators and you do like a two kilometre insertion yomp. Then you've got to take out those stupid little entrenching tools that you put on your bra gun and in your sections, dig all night, yeah, until you get this slip trench. Then you get like mbc attacked in it and then at the end of it you've got to do a 2k insert, uh excursion yomp and get out. And no one wanted to do it and I was stood there waiting for the transport and I'm like I don't want to do this, this is shit.
Speaker 2:And then one guy went excuse me, sergeant, what would happen if I said I didn't want to go on this exercise? And the troop sergeant said, well, you wouldn't go on the exercise and you'd be booted out. And he went sergeant, I don't want to go on this exercise. And he kind of took himself out of the thing, got put off to the flank and inside I smiled and I was like, right, that's what I needed. I'm going to do this now fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, you did it. You know, and I think there's not many people that can go out there and go on that course, especially as one of the originals, and get all the way through and do that and then showing like the 62 to 16. That's fantastic sort of achievement and I think it's a well-earned place, isn't it?
Speaker 2:with the marines, when they've could sort of say it is the toughest course in the world, toughest military course yeah, I mean, people argue it, mate, but you know it's the longest and you know, I'll say, arguably the toughest death. I think it is now 36 weeks because where, when I did it, they used to have what was called a potential war marines course that you had to pass before you could go, yeah that was three days of just getting hammered.
Speaker 2:But now what they've done and I think it's due to um people coming straight out of sydney street and getting injured doing that yeah, it's now a four week course that they put on the beginning of training, okay, and so it's called the recruit orientation phase. So you join limston as a complete and utter civvy and then they spend four weeks building you up to be able to pass what was the potential war marines course. If you fail that four weeks you go back to the beginning again. So that's eight weeks to start with. Before you even start the day one of training, then you've got 32 weeks on top of that. If you make it in one hit potentially longer. It's soul-destroying.
Speaker 1:It sounds soul-destroying. Get back troops or squadded, whatever You'd be like. That's it. I've had enough of this. I'm out of here.
Speaker 2:Do you know what? As well, when I was going through training, that was always my worst fear. I remember on runs and yomps and stuff when I wanted to quit, just in my head saying to myself if you quit, you're going to have to be in pain again in two weeks time. You do all this again in two weeks and you've got to sit and watch everyone else that you joined with advancing and carrying on with their time and that kind of drove me on and I hated the thought of getting back trooped or put into Hunter.
Speaker 2:But since passing out and meeting people that went through that, I had massive respect for them because I thought, well, you've only done the training Mentally. You've had to sit there and battle an injury or getting back trooped and you've had to do it again and you've had to see your oppos passing out and advancing and that would have broke me, you know. So I had so much more respect that I'd been through that and had their training extended. So initially you know I thought it was a bad thing, but actually, looking back on it, it's probably made them stronger a bit more determination, isn't it?
Speaker 1:they want it. They can see their oppos passing out, and they want a piece of that themselves. That's it. So what happens then? You pass out and then you go to a what's called a battalion, or is it a commando unit?
Speaker 2:so what happened with me? I joined february 2001, passed out october 2001 yeah, four weeks before 9 11. So we're just finishing the commando phase of training and we see the planes go into the Twin Towers four weeks before we're finishing our training. So we knew straight away, as soon as we leave this place you know it's game on which, for I think I turned 18 at that time. You know, for a young 18 year old, it was actually quite exciting, because you're stupid and you're naive, aren't you? You think you're arnie from command bill back then. And, uh, I literally finished training, did a bit of time on the, the main gate at limston, and then started getting trained for afghanistan in 2002. Uh, very early on early on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it. How many tours of afghan did you do then?
Speaker 2:I only did one. Um so operation chicaner in 2002. We did all the pre-deployment training for it and then last minute they said, oh, you're not going now and they pulled a load of blokes out. I think it was more of an sf thing and they pulled loads of us out and I ended up just going to bryce, norton and south sarnie like constantly picking blokes up, dropping Norton and South Surrey like constantly picking blokes up, dropping them off and doing airport runs like a taxi driver where they were all deployed and it was so destroying. Do you know what I mean? Because you wanted to be out there yeah, you're seeing the blokes go.
Speaker 1:You want to be part of that. Yeah, because you got injured in was it 07? You got yeah, christmas Eve 2007 so where, between sort of 02 you know sort of passing out and Afghan? What were you doing in that sort of 5 years?
Speaker 2:so I did. Iraq Operation Tell it 1 2003. Yeah, I was on that one. I boxed for the Corps at heavyweight for a little bit in the Navy Championships and the Royal Marines Championships, did a couple tours in Norway, learned how to fight in the Arctic, survival training, skiing and all that kind of stuff. Did an exercise in Virginia, sailed down Sir Galahad from the UK down to Virginia for a bit of training there. I actually took a year out. I left in 2006 when my first daughter was born. She actually took a year out. I left in 2006 when my first daughter was born. She was born in January 2005. She's going to be 16 this month. Left for a year, failed miserably as a civvy, rejoined in 2007 and then went straight into pre-deployment training for Afghanistan for Operation Herrick 7.
Speaker 1:And that was, I mean, 07 is when the shooting really started. Like Musa Kala and a friend of mine, martin Compton, he got sort of whacked on that too. I don't know if you know him, martin, I do, yeah, and I think that was the point in which things got really picked up. And so, going back onto TELIC 1, we sort of came across you guys quite a lot.
Speaker 1:we seem to cross our paths and everything, because you came in across the peninsula did you sort of across the border and you came in from sort of east I was involved in that initial push over that border.
Speaker 2:Uh, some of the other lads went in you know different ways, but I was kind of. I think it was called camp rhino maybe. Yeah, just on the border. We sat there for like a week or two and then initially pushed over and I went into um, because I in the naval base.
Speaker 1:So we we tipped up at them because I probably about I don't know a few days after you blokes were there and so we sort of set up in one part I think you guys had all of the old. There was like some big old factory thing there with all the cranes and stuff that were lifting the shit containers.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And everything had been nicked, everything had been stripped to pieces in that place and blokes, like when we tipped up, there was like PlayStations, there was all sorts of things like in containers, all that saddam and all his cronies obviously bringing in and, um, there was obviously some booties that had, uh, stolen all that, so beat us to it because we wanted it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of that goes on, don't it, from time to time?
Speaker 1:so I hear, but so obviously iraq, that was a interesting one, and um. So that obviously takes you through into what was obviously, uh, one of your defining moments, and you know, to the incident in Afghanistan. How far into the tour were you when you sort of got injured?
Speaker 2:So we deployed on September 7th and I got hit on Christmas Eve 2007. So three months, three and a half months, maybe.
Speaker 1:Is that into a six month tour? It was yeah, yeah, so in the build-up for that sort of three months, um, prior to that, three, four months, what I mean you? Obviously this was the noisy war at this point. So you're out on your, you're in a patrol base up at one of the fobs uh, we're working out at Fob Robinson. Yeah, well known.
Speaker 2:Just out on the ground, like every day, every other day, you know, dominating the ground, taking the fight to the enemy, just showing them what we controlled, trying to help all the civvies out, you know, providing them with whatever we could security, food, water Some of the lads were helping build schools that kind of stuff. Very, very, very different to Iraq. I actually found Iraq really boring and disappointing. Not what I expected, but Afghanistan was exactly what. I expected Firefights, ieds, random attacks just craziness all the time.
Speaker 1:And obviously the attack where you got injured would obviously stick in your mind. But is there anything prior to that, any one incident or one contact that you're in that you think Jesus? That really stands out from the rest.
Speaker 2:Do you know what, and it's not because of the danger element of it, but I remember about three o'clock in the morning and most of us were getting our heads down in the fob in our little compound and it kicked off. There was this random attack on the fob. So we get up and I'm in my pants in my sleeping bag. I get up and obviously like any good soldier you know even in the dark where all your kit and equipment is you can just grab it and run. And I didn't want to get dressed so I just put my flip-flops on, threw my body armor on, helmet with my chin straps hanging down and I ran down in my pants and I think they were like pink Lycra things. I had like antibacterial special pants and there was a young lad in the Sanger trying to get the rounds down. He's a little bit nervous. So I just grabbed the GPMG. I'm like where are they? And he kind of gave me some target indication and I'm just in this firefight like bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, in my underwear, with this helmet hanging off my head, body armor on, no shirt on, and it went on for about an hour and you know we melted the barrel off all the gpmgs. There was gpmg link all over the place and we finally got told you know, stop.
Speaker 2:And I just looked around and we all just burst out laughing. There were like four of us in the sauna and we're like look at each other and we're all covered in you. You know that, that black gunpowder all up our arms, and you know we just looked a sack of shit. We've got half our uniform on. I'm in my underwear with flip-flops on and we just burst out laughing. What are we doing? We just had a life or death firefight in our underwear. That's the adrenaline as well, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It's good, it's going. You get to the end and your heart's racing. You've just been in a contact. You're like fucking hell and uh, looking around, it's almost like vietnam-esque, isn't it the way that some of it was carried out in the early days, speaking, some of the other guys that, um, it will remain nameless and it's probably just a story in case anyone high up's listening. But you know, blokes were literally just cutting about camping flip-flops and just in not in full battle dress really, when they're going out patrol. And it wasn't until, I think, the contacts really upped and people were getting injured. It was like hang on, you know, we got to take this the right way. We've got to get the helmets on. We can't just be cutting around baseball caps and stuff, yeah, yeah. So obviously then that takes us to uh say, christmas eve was when you, you got injured yeah, it was, yeah, was, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we just got tasked. I think we'd been kind of confined to the FOB for about three days just because we didn't really have anything to do. You know, there wasn't anything going on in our up north like you know, kajaki kind of way. They were heavily involved in some contacts. We could see all the tracer at night, you know off in the distance, but we didn't have much to do. We could see all the tracer at night, you know off in the distance, but we didn't have much to do. So the chain of command were like all right, we've got to get on the ground just because we've not left for like three days. We need to keep that momentum, show the people watching us, the enemy, that we're out there doing something. They won't know what we're doing and what we're not doing.
Speaker 2:And so we got tasked with this patrol and it was really basic, you know, up to that point we'd be given an objective and we'd push out for a couple hours at a time, go one, two, three miles away from the fob, whatever we needed to do. But the idea here was just to leave the rear entrance of our camp in with two sections one. One go north one go south, just stick to the perimeter of the fob, meet at the opposite side now, so at the front entrance of the camp, where we would come in vehicles and then finish. Do you know what I mean? It was literally just to get the lads out of camp, shake it out, keep momentum, nothing major. So when we had we'd been out for we'd still done about three or four hours out there, maybe five, you know, really slowly, methodically, just and just actually. You know, you just enjoy your time out of that fog, don't you? Just out there with some different scenery.
Speaker 2:And then and then we came to the end of the patrol and my section were up on a high piece of ground. So we were tasked with giving cover to the other section who were way, way down beneath us, so they could peel back into camp and get behind the perimeter wall and then return the favor. So I was 2IC at the time. Right in front of me was this shallow bowl on the ground. The section commander had taken his half of the section off and started giving them fire positions and I looked at this bowl on the ground and I thought, okay, cool, this is the best cover we've got.
Speaker 2:There's no, we're having this high feature. There's no buildings to get behind, no trees, no rocks, anything like that. We'll get in here, get on our belt buckles and then just go through the process. You know basic, standard stuff, done a million times, yeah. So we jump in, the lads all start taking the fire positions, um, stood back, you know, just making sure that we're doing things properly and everyone's tight and we're defended, and you know, everyone's got their arcs of fire and all that good stuff. And then, when they were happy and I was happy, I went to walk over to my position that I had selected and as I got there and I went to get down to my stomach, I knelt on and detonated an improvised explosive device.
Speaker 1:So that was on a pressure plate, I'm assuming, rather than a command wire or something. Have you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the American SF lads that we were working with. They were in the fog with us. They went out and cleared the area after, because they've got to write reports on it apparently, and there were seven of these devices in this little crater that we were in and what it was was an anti-personnel mine on top no, sorry, an anti-personnel mine with on top of it the warhead of a 107-millimeter Chinese rocket. So I had now on the Chinese rocket warhead that had put pressure on the landmine. The metal plates had touched inside the AP mine exploded, which caused the warhead that had put pressure on the landmine, the metal plates had touched inside the AP mine exploded, which caused the warhead to explode, which caused me to explode, and just luckily none of the other devices around there in that little area went off. Otherwise I think it would have been a lot worse than it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at this point, absolutely pandemonium for yourself. You're on the ground. Anyone else injured?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the lads caught up a bunch of shrapnel in his arm and his back, but you know that wasn't life threatening. I think he was back on the ground within 10 days. He went back and got patched up and he refused to go back to the uk and uh, got back amongst it within about 10 days. But yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was chaotic but that I mean you know, obviously the balloon's gone up, you've been hit. Uh, you're now into that golden hour, so sort of where. Where did it go at this point? I mean, they had to get you back. You were by Fort Robinson, so was their help close at hand?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very close, which was very lucky for me. But almost immediately the medic was scrambled. One of the guys in the section was on the comms. He went back to HQ, let them know what had happened, delivered a nine-liner. The medic came out to me very, very quickly. One of the lads had already cleared a safe route to me using his mind clearance drills. He'd marked a safe path. The other lads were in all-round defense making sure there was no small arms follow-up. And then this medic got to me really quickly, put the tourniquets on, shot me with morphine, dragged me onto the stretcher and then got me out of there.
Speaker 2:You know there was some crazy stuff that happened in all that time. My right foot was still attached to my right leg by like a nerve or a tendon or something, so I had to cradle my foot on my stomach. My left leg was completely obliterated. My right arm was hanging on by some flesh and a bit of muscle, so all that had to be kind of just flopped onto my torso while this guy evacuated me off of this high feature, put me in the back of a super cat and as the super cat was throwing up the incline to go back into the fob, I fell out the back, the medic fell out and then I fell out, but the guy driving, who was my sergeant major, turned around and reached out to try and grab me, to hold me in, and ended up grabbing my femur bone coming up my right leg okay, now, actually, I got into a fob and the last thing I remember was the chinook landing, you know, and it creates this huge sandstorm.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a lot of heat that's pumped out the exhaust. I remember that coming down on me and then hearing the tailgate drop, and then that's when I passed out and were you in any pain up to this point?
Speaker 2:the morphine sort of wiped that all away yeah, I wasn't in any real pain at all, to be honest. Um, it's amazing, even before the morphine, like it's amazing how your body copes. So if you can just imagine a really intense numb, pins and needles feeling just very uncomfortable in my three damaged limbs, there was no pain and the morphine came and that helped a little bit more. But, yeah, even with a man grabbing my femur bone, there was no pain. The pain comes after when you're recovering in hospital. Yeah, I can imagine there was no pain. Um, the pain comes after when you're recovering in hospital, and at what point did you so you?
Speaker 1:you've obviously passed out getting into the chinook, which has taken you back to, I suppose, like to bastion um. And then you got medevac back to the uk, did you? Would you go via germany? I suppose you were out for the count no, so I'll tell you what actually.
Speaker 2:So, when I passed out when the chinook landed, they got me on there and they started, you know, going through their checklist to see if I was alive and I had no signs of life. So they put me in a corner while they got working on the other lad I told you about the one who got trapped on his back and then his arm, unfortunately, as one of the medics walked past me to get some equipment to go back and work on this other guy. Although they, as one of the medics, walked past me to get some equipment to go back and work on this other guy, although they they tasked me as dead and said just leave him, we've got to work on the other guy. My eye fluttered, which meant that my heart was beating, so the medics all scrambled around and started to try and help me and bring me around, but they couldn't get any fluids into me because all my veins had collapsed because of the massive blood loss. Now they had this new technique. I forget what it's called, but it basically involves trying to get fluids into a casualty's body. If you can't through the traditional routes of you know a needle in the veins, then you take, I think it's called an easy io drill and you drill into someone's tibia and fibula and then you put fluids in that way. So they went to do that, problem being I no longer had any tibias or any fibulas. They've both been completely destroyed from the ied.
Speaker 2:So, you know, they're on the back of this chin up and they're thinking what the fuck do we do now? Do you know what I mean? Because we're trying this new procedure and it had only been cleared for use three days prior to this incident, like it had never been used before. They'd only just said, yeah, this is safe, we're going to start using this going forward. And now the first guy to get to use it on doesn't have a tip or a fib. So they're flapping in the back of this chin up which is banking left to right with sand and dust going everywhere.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, you know, these guys are very switched on. They decided that they were going to try and drill into my hip yeah, which had never been done before, never even been discussed, but it was just the only option that they had, and the first time it failed, uh, they said that they didn't pull my skin tight enough to get the? Uh, the drill and the needle to bite. But the second time they tried it it was a success. They got the fluids into me and about three minutes later they said I was awake again and responsive and answering questions, so it was pretty intense.
Speaker 1:It is that one eye flutter, literally, and that that medic, the right place, right time. Seeing that, yeah, it could have been a whole different story now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I won't be here. I know that.
Speaker 1:No, and so what happens at this point then? I suppose do you remember much of the preceding days and weeks.
Speaker 2:I remember nothing in the back of the chin-up. They then they threw me back to Bastion at that point and they took me to the field hospital and the surgeons looked at the damage to my legs and my arm and they decided that they had to amputate both my legs above the knee or right above the elbow if they were going to save me, because it was a mess and they had to find where the tissue and the flesh was healthy because the blood supply um died off. So while I actually looking at the photos still had my knees, originally all the flesh and muscle and tissue had died. So they had to amputate above my knees where it was all healthy. Otherwise it just means more surgeries when you get back to the uk just trying to chase that healthy tissue. So they did that, uh, in the field hospital and then they flew me back home christmas morning. I got into cellioc hospital about four o'clock on christmas day.
Speaker 1:I suppose your mum and dad are waiting for you at celio at this point yeah, again, I don't remember any of this.
Speaker 2:I was in a coma for three days. I woke up on the 28th of december, uh, very briefly, uh, just just exhausted I could. I could hear people talking around me. I barely had enough energy to open my eyes, couldn't talk properly, just completely wiped out. But you know, I could see the kind of blur from the lights on the hospital ceiling. Woke up very briefly and then passed out again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a difficult time for you and obviously your family and loved ones, and I think this is one of the things that, speaking to other friends of mine who've gone through cello, can sort of been injured is. It's the impact that, at this point, that it has on the whole family and how everyone needs to really try and come together and support each other, cause there's going to be not a lot of support was required for wives, husbands, moms, dads you know, children that in this recovery process, which starts at right at the beginning now and it's something necessarily goes on for years, um, and how have you found that recovery process?
Speaker 2:I'm very fortunate and you know I've seen some nightmare examples from other branches of the military but I'm very fortunate in that, you know, being a rural marine, we're very family orientated and family focused because we're so small and tight-knit. And they looked after my family better than I ever could have hoped for. You know, they they were up there trying to deal with all this and they never had to worry about anything stupid like paying for food or accommodation or fuel or or any of that stuff. It was all taken care of by welfare so we could just focus on me fighting through those first couple weeks, getting rid of infections and try not to die through that. And yeah, they just looked after them beyond all my expectations. And the funny thing was the sergeant major who was the the welfare guy up at the hospital was actually my sergeant when I first started training, who taught me the basics of ironing and washing and shaving and all that stuff there. So he, he looked after me my first two weeks and then looked after my family when I got whacked brilliant.
Speaker 1:That's nice to know, isn't it? Nothing goes back to what we're saying in the beginning about the Marines always felt like it was much more close-knit family, rather than depending on what regiment you're in the army you might have a decent regimental association or some others are pretty crap for the blokes. So how long did you spend in Silioka in the recovery sort of phase, learning, getting out of bed almost only six weeks.
Speaker 2:Only six weeks in hospital and you know no one else is going to see this, but you can see a big scar on my hand, yeah, so initially that's a shrapnel wound. I only had two fingers that I had. I think there was like this bar above my bed that I used to have to use my two fingers to pull myself up on and and it was bizarre, mate, like where I had no legs before. Do you remember those things from like the early 90s called the weebles? They were like it was like a little toy and they didn't have any legs. Their bottom was like an egg and you just flick them down like a sabutier.
Speaker 1:And it come back up.
Speaker 2:I'd sit up in bed and just go woof and I'd weeble over, because you know where I had legs before, I didn't now and I lost that anchor and that balance and so just trying to sit up took me a ridiculous amount of effort, like wiped me out. Yeah, I'm trying to. You're trying to fight off infections. You follow medication. You've just been through this traumatic incident.
Speaker 1:Everything's just exhausting in that first week or two, just trying to stay awake for more than half a day I can't believe you just said you know six weeks I mean six weeks from this horrendous incident through to being discharged back into what?
Speaker 2:into your family's care well, no, straight from hospital to rehab. So selling them to headly court, yeah, um. And then that's where I was going to be issuing my prosthetics, which I would have thrown on a lot sooner than I did. But my left leg has, in my inner thigh, there's a huge chunk of flesh that was ripped out from shrapnel. You know, I've got kind of looks like that.
Speaker 2:All this was ripped out. I got burns all down my back. So where I was really keen with that you know raw marines hat on to just get on and smash it I had to be very sensible because I didn't want to risk further injuring myself and having more surgeries and delaying my progress. So I had to spend a good month and a month and a half, maybe two months, in in rehab just doing things from a wheelchair, you know, wanting to get on and start walking, but having to be sensible with it and and just try, and, you know, work on my core, get around rehab, an electric wheelchair, um, and work on all the other things that I could while I was waiting to heal up.
Speaker 1:And what was the prognosis with the doctors? Did they say you're going to walk again with prosthetics, or were they very much? You're going to be in a chair, mate, that's your lot, and quite sort of negative.
Speaker 2:That's what they told me in hospital, mate, Three weeks post-explosion. I get told because I'm with amputations it's like top trumps right. So your lowest form of amputation I don't mean that disrespectfully is a single below knee amputation. Okay, so you can just go and whack a leg on, whack a foot on and walk out the door and no one knows yeah, vinny always calls those flesh wounds exactly.
Speaker 1:He's got one of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, but the next level is an above knee amputation. Then you've got vinny, which is an above knee and a below knee. Yeah, then you've got a double above knee. You've obviously got hip disarticulations, which rules out prosthetics if you're amputated through your hips, and it's the same with arms. You've got a below elbow, above elbow and then through the shoulder. So they told me very early on that no one has success in prosthetics who is missing both the legs above the knee.
Speaker 2:He said if you just had one leg missing above the knee, one good leg and two good arms, you would struggle in everything you do. So you need to get in the mindset of life in a wheelchair, which, for a 24-year-old former well currently serving at that time Royal Marine, was not what I wanted to hear.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I think the rest of my life is going to be spent in a wheelchair, having people looking after me, doing things for me, whereas a couple of weeks before that, I'm running around as one of the fittest guys on the planet kicking ass, and you know everything else I've done to that point. And now I felt like I was a baby again, you know, and I wasn't in a great place when I got told that, you know. But yeah, we got over that.
Speaker 1:You did. But well, I suppose that's your strength of character coming through and obviously the raw marine sort of spirit as well that you know you're not going to be put down and but in terms of ptsd and you know we're not going to sort of touch on that side of things too much, but has there been point of view sort of struggled? Is there anything that anyone else who might be listening to this, who has been injured or you know who's currently sort of going through what you've been through? Is there any tips you could give them off the back of sort of how you felt on your dark days?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:So. I always feel a bit guilty when I talk about this, because I'm very fortunate in the fact that I don't I don't suffer with PTSD or anything. They actually said that and it was a new thing I discovered a couple years ago in America, which is a lot more mainstream now. It's called post-traumatic growth. It's where you come out the other side of a traumatic event stronger than when you went in, and I was.
Speaker 2:I was speaking up in London a couple years ago and I bumped into one of my physios from hospital and he told me this story about when I was in rehab. When I was in hospital, I woke up and I'm like right, okay, cool, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. This is what I want to do. You know, let's get this going. Let's go do some phys, let's strengthen my core. I know what I need to do. He said they all thought I was suffering from something called post-traumatic euphoria, where you just daydream and thinking, oh, I can do this, I can do that, and then the reality hits and they were all waiting for me to crash and he said you never crashed, you just cracked on going. Yeah, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and then figured stuff out, and so you know I've been very lucky in that. That's the way my mindset was from the minute I woke up. I just wanted to focus on what I can do and what I can achieve and how I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2:Now, that's not to say I've not had bad days. I have. Do you know what I mean? In the beginning, when that doctor told me I was never going to walk, and then the first time I left hospital and couldn't access any rooms in the welfare flat because I had an extra wide wheelchair. You know, I spent that whole night crying with my girlfriend my now wife in this welfare flat, just crying, saying I didn't want to do it, I couldn't do it and it was going to be too hard and I didn't want to live like that. Having gone from you know six foot two, 16 stone, from you know six foot two, sixteen stone, you know to, I think. I think I'm four foot one without my legs on, and back then I was obviously having lost three limbs and having a fight of infection, so lost a lot of weight. I was about nine stone eight, um just looked a mess.
Speaker 2:I looked a mess and I didn't recognize myself. So I just cried all night. But there's a lot to be said for having a good cry and paraging it all out and getting it out there and speaking and talking to people about it. The next day I just woke up and I wrote fuck it, let's go, yeah it.
Speaker 1:the next day I just woke up and I'm right, fuck it, let's go. Yeah, give me the legs, give me the plan, let's go. That real positive attitude and I mean, and I suppose that was the start of, I mean, you've just been on an amazing journey, but now the next step of your life, this post-traumatic growth almost, in which you've now achieved some fantastic things and continue to do so. So, um, I suppose, see, we could sit here all night talking about this. But at what point then did you think, right, I'm going to get into the Invictus and sort of get into the Invictus games.
Speaker 2:So the thing for me was right at the beginning. I was visited by a guy who had two legs missing above the knee. He was out walking and so my only goal from the start of my rehab was to become independent of a wheelchair. I didn't want to do squat. Everyone was always saying, you know, when are you going to do the Paralympics? Like it was some sort of prerequisite to being disabled, and I'm not interested.
Speaker 2:You know, before I was injured, I used to compete at kickboxing Mu thai boxing.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to sprint 100 meters or or any of that kind of stuff, and I just ignored it all and I just focused on learning to walk and live my life without wheelchair. Yeah, and then I was sat right here now where I am, um 2016, december 2016 yeah, 2016 December knowing that 2017 Christmas Eve was going to be my 10-year anniversary. So I started planning out what I wanted to do to celebrate 10 years post-injury and the Invictus Games was two years old at that time and I'd seen my friends and people I've been through rehab with going out there and coming back with medals and improving in their you know personal lives and in that rehab and all that kind of stuff. So I thought you know what? I'll give that a shot. That'll be a nice way to celebrate 10 years. I'll go out there do some sport, because I've never done any before, and then see what it's all about, see what the fuss is all about and then see how I do so what did you do?
Speaker 1:what was your sort of sport?
Speaker 2:what discipline you went rowing, swimming, hand cycling shop and discuss and that was all.
Speaker 1:Did you do that, like to say, the shop put, and was that on your prosthetics?
Speaker 2:No, you sit on a specially made chair with like ratchet straps over your lap, like a seatbelt to hold you onto a chair. It's down to the individual. All these sports are down to the individual, like what kit they use or don't use and how they set it up. But for me, I just found the most basic, what everyone was doing, and thought, okay, I'll go with that. I had no plans in taking it further and becoming some sort of Paralympian, I just wanted to have a go and see what I could do.
Speaker 1:And just getting to the Invictus. You know it's not like just because you're disabled you're automatically given a pass to get into the games. You've still got to prove that you are fit enough and you're in the top tier of your discipline to be able to actually get to the games so you make it hardcore.
Speaker 2:That's like 600 people applied and there were 62 places on the team. You know, I mean and it's not just down to your athletic prowess there, there's a whole, I think there's 11 different criteria you've got to meet, and it goes down to as much as your social media presence. You could be the best athlete in the world the fittest, the fastest, the strongest but if you're on Twitter and you're jumping in and screaming and shouting in political debates, or you're saying this and that and you're not going to represent the country in the best way, you don't make the team. Do you know what I mean? It's a holistic thing.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really positive message. You know, I think if you see some of the stuff that the England football team, what they get up to, and you see them doing their off time, if they chose the team by way of their sort of off-field performance, half of them country because it's an honor, isn't it? But and then obviously that was all down to Prince Harry and uh, predominantly. You know, he's kind of like the face of the Invictus Games and uh, I mean, at this point have you sort of become friendly with Prince Harry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've done numerous things over the years. Um, we met way back, I think, in 2009, at an event in London called the City Salute, and then he came, you know, with William and they come to Headley Court, and did a couple of visits. And then we bumped into him at some other stuff like the James Bond Quantum of Solace premiere, and then, yeah, again, we kind of met again at Invictus when I first applied for the team back in 2017.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Yeah, I think everything he's done. He's done a lot for the military. I think he's done more than any other person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, massive amounts yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, obviously, walking people think you get a prosthetic limb and you can just walk around as normal, but it's far from that being above the knee.
Speaker 2:you've got to learn everything from scratch it takes a bilateral above the knee amputee anywhere between 300 and 500 percent more energy to do anything than it does an able-bodied person. So I always say, when if I'm on stage and I'm speaking at the end of the hour, whatever, it is 45 minutes. If an able-bodied person had stood up here and did this, they'd have to jog on the spot without you know like their knees coming up high for like the entire time to equate to the energy expenditure it takes me just to stand on the spot crazy it isn't, and what I know that some of the other guys I know they go over to the states to get their limbs, um sort of prosthetics, serviced quite regularly.
Speaker 1:I think they look after them quite well over there. How have you found that yourself between the States and the UK in terms of sort of medical after service?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I went over. I was like the first one to go over there back in. It was 2000. Well, I know the exact date June, the 9th 2009. And I went over there because I was the UK's first triple amputee from, I think, since the Second World War, and because I knew I could walk. I needed someone who had my injuries, who was further into the recovery pathway, to mentor me. And I found a guy over there, a guy called Cameron Clapton, who was hit by a train when he was further into the recovery pathway to mentor me.
Speaker 2:And I found a guy over there, a guy called cameron clapp, was hit by a train when he's 15, and so I went over there just to meet him and to spend some time with him, to pick his brains, to get him to coach me and tell me how to do this and how to do that, because no one back here really knew, and even the people that knew more than everyone else, you know, there's only so much somebody who's got their legs can tell you about using prosthetic legs if they've never used them. Yeah, so I thought that the only way I'm going to master these is by going to someone who's doing much better than me and just copying everything he does and just taking I think at the time he'd been in amputee for six years, so taking six years of his successes and failures and learning how to distill that into three weeks and um, that was it. Yeah, 9th of june 2009 went over there, never took a wheelchair, never used one since brilliant.
Speaker 1:I think that's the positive message you're putting out there, isn't it? That you've had, obviously, the courage and determination to do that and you've set yourself a goal and and that's what you've done. I suppose have you been able to pass that message on, because obviously, sadly, there's been many others that have been injured since and, uh, have been, have had amputations. Have you been able to then pass on your knowledge to them?
Speaker 2:yeah, so a couple of the lads went out after so john white, who's a former royal marine triple amputee, went out to the same place. I did. Ian Bishop, who was a Marine, vinnie Manley we're talking about. He's been out there and, um, not not a lot of people know. Actually, you know I was whacked in 2007.
Speaker 2:I was one of the very, very first and the rehab system looked very, very different back then to what it does now. And I brought all of that back to the UK and actually got the American team over to the UK to share what they had learned about bilateral amputees and everything, and it really changed the way rehab was approached. There were loads of lads coming in later who you know the rehab was so much better and so much, you know, they'd opened their minds up to these new ways of doing things and so guys were just getting better so much quicker. Yeah, what was taking me six months, they could do in in two months because all these improvements have been made. Not, not, not. Hardly any of them know any of this, you know, because it was way back in the day, before they were even injured yeah, and I suppose yeah, I mean the british healthcare system, military system had never seen anything like this.
Speaker 1:You know, typically injuries like this on the battlefield you wouldn't make it off the battlefield, but now the majority of guys are surviving because of that great health care. You know that that first hour. You know that the evacuation teams that were coming and getting the guys off the ground, I mean they're just absolute heroes and what they were doing yeah and uh, you know, so many people were alive today because of them, it's a great thanks and so taking us into the present.
Speaker 1:Then what is it? What do you get up to in your days? Now, I see you're very prolific on social media. You've obviously written a very successful book and, uh, you know, I've really enjoyed reading that over the weekend, man down by mark ormrod, available on amazon and I'm sure there's many other retailers. Um, I don't know if you got it in hard copy, or is it? Is it just paperback?
Speaker 2:I used to have it in everything, mate, and now, for some reason, the publishing house will only knock out the small paperback versions. So we'll see what's the?
Speaker 1:what's your plan for the future? Any anything more? I've seen this on your website. You're talking about a bit of telly.
Speaker 2:It might, something might come off there yeah, I've um, so I've just quit I don't like saying quit my job. I've just finished my job now. I've been working with the raw marines charity for 10 years, ever since I was discharged, and I've just finished there now. And I've got loads of things going on at the minute, so I'm just about to finish the second book. I've got loads of things going on at the minute, so I'm just about to finish the second book. I've got a movie project that was supposed to start filming last year but COVID has put the brakes on that.
Speaker 2:I want to write another book. I want to write a personal development book. I've already got the bones of it. I've just got to find the time to stick all the flesh in those bones. I think it's going to be like three times the size of anything ever written, because every time I start writing it just flows out of me all this stuff that I've learned over the years which I'm hoping can help other people. And then I'd love to do a bunch more documentaries. You know I did one called no Limits, which is on Amazon, and I really enjoyed that process. So I'd love to do more stuff like that. And is on Amazon and I really enjoyed that process so I'd love to do more stuff like that and whatever comes up. You know I've done a bit of film work as an extra casualty scenes and all that kind of stuff. Really enjoy that. But I've got so much I can do, I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'll talk to you offline about something that might be coming up then that might actually take your fancy. Okay, so if they do a film on you, you, you are there on the casting couch. That's probably not the right word to use, actually, I'm glad we're on the same page and um, so you're on, you're casting and they're saying right, mark, who do you want to play you? So who would? Who would you have what actor if you could have anyone?
Speaker 2:mate, people have asked me this loads and it's it's so difficult because I was 24 when I got injured, so I need to find someone who's young enough to look like a 24 year old me yeah you know what I mean. But I mean there's loads, there's loads of talent out there, in there. There's um, I'm gonna even I going to forget everyone's names now. So, uh, guy from gangs of London, peaky blinders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, uh, irish guy, I can't remember his name.
Speaker 2:He was the main guy in gangs of London. I've completely forgot his name now. Yeah, I know who you're talking about Joe Cole, joe Cole, um, you're talking about joe cole. Joe cole, um, like taran agaton, those kind of guys, the young up and coming, got well, very well established and up and coming guys.
Speaker 2:but the problem we've got right now is we can't approach any of these people because they don't know what they're doing, because of covid yeah but you know, I'd love to get someone with a big name and if I had it my way, if I could wave a magic wand and get it exactly how I wanted it, I would love to have loads of A-list like cameos pop up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean it's like a physio walks in and on the first day of physio and talks me through things and it's some big A-lister. And then they kind of walk out and people are watching like was that so-and-so that just walked in, did that little role and then you never see him again, you know, I mean, then you're off to lunch and the lady serving your lunch is kieran eichling or something you know I mean. And then in between all that you've got actually the lads that I went through rehab with in all the rehab scenes, in hospital beds and, yeah, in the background learning to walk again. I'd love that. You know people that I served with, people that were I was in rehab with all as cameos and extras.
Speaker 1:I'm sure a lot of the guys would be well out for they got that opportunity. Yeah, reach out to Tom Cruise. Maybe you can get him to fly the Chinook taking you out of Afghan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a bit old he is a bit old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in real life they said he was too short and he would never have made a fighter pilot or something. Yeah, hollywood needs that. Yeah, well, you can do what you like if you're rich in Hollywood. So, taking you to the end of the show, now sort of family life, you said wife children settled down.
Speaker 2:How are you coping with covid? All right, it was a real struggle this time last year well, slightly later than that, like february, march time last year, where both me and my wife were working, we were homeschooling the two little kids I've got three all together, um, so we're homeschooling the little ones, trying to teach them most of the day and then having them do our jobs in the evening till like 8, 9, 10 at night, and it went on for months and months, and months, you know, and I think it just came in time that they let the kids back into school. But as they did, my wife got promoted twice. She got promoted twice in lockdown, so she went from a part-timer to full-time, to senior management team.
Speaker 2:I was working, we're homeschooling. It was just crazy hectic, like it is and has been for everyone. But you know, we just gritted our teeth and stuck it out and things are slightly better now. Like I said, I've just finished my job. So I'm I and things are slightly better now. Like I said, I've just finished my job, so I'm doing more of the entrepreneurial stuff now, so I'm around a bit more for school runs and doing all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But we're doing all right, we're doing all right. I'll get my eldest daughter's GCSE mock exam results come tomorrow, so she's a bit nervous about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so when she is she due to do her main this year, then I suppose they scrapped it, so her mocks. Now.
Speaker 2:What she gets more is essentially her gcses well, part of it, and then it's going to combine coursework and teacher feedback about how dedicated she's, everything and but yeah, tomorrow's a big day yeah, so she gets her b's or c's or whatever number scale they do on these days she's gonna be very happy.
Speaker 1:And that's her then, really for the rest of the rest of the year. She can kind of take it a bit easy and look for college yeah, she's already done all that.
Speaker 2:She's applied for apprenticeships, applied to colleges and just waiting to hear back.
Speaker 1:That's great and so, taking sort of the entrepreneurial side of things you just said about, let's sort of finish it off and do do a plug for everything you've got. So if anyone wants to listen to your journey, sort of follow you see where you're going, they read the next book, everything you're up to. Where can they sort of do that? What mediums you're on?
Speaker 2:it's best if I'm on social media. You know I'm on instagram, twitter, facebook linkedin. I've got a tiktok account but I still can't be on that platform for more than five minutes where I want to throw my phone out the window. It just irritates me like crazy. But I'm all over that and we talked about this off air. But I'm going to kind of restart my podcast this year, hoping to record next Thursday night because that you know I didn't get to do as much as I'd like to, because of work and everything else.
Speaker 1:So yeah, um, you just google my name and you'll find me somewhere yeah, I googled you and it came up with obviously your website and then porn hub. So I don't know if that was you is that my premium subscription?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely. I think it's free at the moment. Wife told me, um. So there you go. So I think everyone who's listening to this is obviously going to really enjoy this episode. And, um, you know, we'll do a little outro after this and just sort of um plug a couple of other bits. But you know, for me personally, I just want to say thank you very much for coming on the show tonight pleasure, mate.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me that was episode nine of another man's shoes, and we had mark ormrod on. I think everyone who listens to that will agree that he's been on a hell of a journey and he's just tackled it with that raw marines commando spirit, you know, pure grit and determination, and nothing has stopped him. That's what everyone just loves. We like to hear the success, we want to hear these podcasts. We see the positive message out of those dark days and so thank you very much, mark, for taking us through your journey.
Speaker 1:For anyone that wants to carry on and listen to where Mark's going, head over to Instagram. You can follow him on there. Just type in his name. You'll soon find him. He's also on, obviously, other forums on Facebook and TikTok and wherever you might like to look. Heading into the future, we're now on YouTube. We're setting up the page on there. So all the interviews that we've done so far, that we've recorded on video, we're going to put those videos up there so you can take a listen to them. So please subscribe, continue to like. If you're on Apple and you're listening to this, please just leave one message and a little answer on there and a comment. It helps get us up the rankings, but for now. That's another episode of Another Man's Shoes. Thanks for listening.