Kim Hughes: The Most Dangerous Job on Earth?

I've always said you need an element of fear. If you're not scared of something, then you're probably too far gone. I got a god complex when I was out there. And it took one of my mates to physically slap it out of me because I didn't think I could die. I got asked by the guy there, you need to ring your ops room. I remember ringing the ops room and it was our office of commanding ROC of the task force basically came on. Oh man, it was like a kick in the gut. I'm Slevon Asakella. After over 25 years of broadcasting in the world of action sports, I have seen an over abundance of risk taking. But risk has many faces. It doesn't just live on the mountain or in the half pipe. It keeps the minion over the sky. The land, the sea, and a thousand places in between. Embracing risk is like signing a contract with yourself. You have to put a piece of view off to the side and lay it all along the line in order to do what you love. And in this season, I'll be traveling the world to meet some of the most exceptional people on Earth who have signed that very contract, people who have built a personal relationship with risk, embody it, and perform at the highest level. Welcome to the Team Ignition Show. There are some people that when you meet them in real life, they are more than meets the eye. Seeing them walk down the street, you might not realize that they possess a particular set of skills. But what they are holding on to, just beneath the surface, would blow your mind. Our guest today is one of those people. He is technically known as a ammunition technician or an ordinance expert. But to the general population, you would know him as a bomb disposal technician. We've all seen the occupation portrayed in movies, but this man, Kim Hughes, formerly Sergeant Hughes, is the real deal. Kim, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks, Ma. For those who are just seeing this show and didn't see us together, make a watch us on the Team Ignition YouTube channel, where you are giving me a very brief outside defense look at what it means to be a bomb disposal technician. But off the bat, I wonder if you can describe what that means. I can say it cavalierly, but it really involves choosing to put your life on the line in the interest of saving other lives in a way that most people can't comprehend. So what is it that a bomb technician expert does? Essentially, we respond to calls, shouts, requests for assistance where either items of ordinance have been found or improvised explosive devices have been found. And we respond to those accordingly with a raft of equipment, some of the bits that you saw yesterday, whether it's robots, bomb disposal suits, weapon systems, or we just utilize explosives to essentially get rid of items of ammunition that need disposing of in a safe manner. What would you say the main objective is, when you are called into a job, what is that objective? So I mean, first and foremost, is safety. We need to ensure that everyone is safe, whether that be members of the public, the police or forces, depending on where we're operating. And as part of that safety, we need to look after infrastructure. But our goal is to return the situation to normal as quickly as possible in line with that safety. I imagine that, like at career day, growing up in high school, when people are coming in to offer young people a glimpse at what jobs they might be able to have, you don't show up at a high school with that option. So how did you find this calling? I mean, for me, it was a bit of an accident. I joined the Army as a driver to drive Army trucks. That was my kind of. My thing when I went to the Army careers office, they said, "We need drivers." They kind of sold it to me like being a driver was like being in the special forces. And I ended up driving the bomb disposal teams in Northern Ireland. And I just. I was hooked. You know, I'd been driving trucks for like two or three years, give or take, went across to Northern Ireland, attached to the EOD guys across there. And from. Yeah, everything was history after that point for me. Prior to that, were you raised around the military? Was there anything that sort of gave you a draw to it growing up? I'm a military child, if you will. So I've traveled the world with my father, my stepfather. Both of which were in the military. My brother joined the military, my uncles, etc. So it was kind of a military family. So for me, it was like. It was only natural for me to transition from my period of time in education into the military, and that's the route I took. What is that like, you know, I grew up a completely civilian life. Military was something that I saw very much from afar. But growing up with it generationally and culturally as a part of your family. What was that like growing up as a child? It was great. You experienced living all over the place, different countries. Unbases? On bases, yeah, or in military families accommodation. I remember very little of it, because I was quite young at that time. And you're constantly moving around, because an assignment would be two to three years and then you go somewhere else and you're never really in a fixed position. So it's kind of disjointed, but I was so young at the time, it didn't really matter to me. It was your normal? Yeah, it was the norm for me, you know. And then we kind of settled back in the UK and then short period of time in school. And then I decided that the military was for me. Driving the truck is one thing. Choosing to be, I want to be the person that's being driven out to the assignment is another. What flipped that switch? It was, you know what, it was Northern Ireland. I was just their driver. I was assigned to them, the whole team there. I remember going out the first time we got a shout in Belfast, which back then was quite rough. And I remember the bomb disposal operator guy called Andy. He put this bomb disposal suit on similar to what you put on. And he was walking down the road and I was kind of asking everyone what's he doing. And I was going to go and deal with this device. And I was like, you know, you're a lunatic. What are you doing? And then from there he then came back and everyone was on his every word. Everyone was looking at him. Everyone was expecting him to sort of solve their problem. And he was like a pipe bomb or something like that. And I was in awe. I was just like, I need to be this guy. I need to be the guy that is going down the road. I mean, I used to mess around with fireworks as a kid. You know, how do they work? Why do they do what they do? You know, I may or may not have blown up something in the garden a few times. And all that sort of got into trouble for it. But for me, it was, I just wanted to understand. I wanted to know what they were doing, why they were doing it. And as soon as I got to grips with it, that was I was sold. What did your dad do in the Army? He was an electrician. He was in Rietje, something called Remy. So a Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers. So he was kind of a different route. What was your father and your family sort of response to? You're making this much different choice than the ones that he had. I think early on, probably didn't really understand the enormity of what we were doing. Because I changed trade from a driver to what was known as an ammunition technician where you learn everything there is to know about ammunition. So it's a technical role. The bomb disposal part comes later. And then, once you'd sort of kind of do the normal, not necessarily normal bomb disposal, but the sort of the day to day stuff in the UK. And that could be anything from, you know, Gronney's been polishing a hand grenade on the mantle piece for the past 60 years that Granddad bought back from the war, which turns out to be life. Right. To school boys making pipe bombs in their dad's sheds, to all the way up to criminal terrorist level stuff. So the sort of day to day stuff, and that was a really fun stuff to do. Because you're on the ground daily just doing stuff and it was really good. But it only really kind of hit certainly for me and my family the sort of recognition when I was deploying overseas like Afghanistan, etc. Where we were doing some pretty crazy stuff. We went from general population to an entirely different environment with a different set of rules. That's another level. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I redeployed back to Northern Ireland when I was, when I transitioned to be an ammunition technician. But I was there as kind of what is known as the second in command of the team. So I was operating the robot and all this sort of stuff. Before I transitioned to be a bomb disposal operator. So I kind of had the experience of Northern Ireland. and what was going on over there. And then I did a little bit of stuff in Iraq, but Afghanistan for me was the big bit. - That's the arrival. - That was just absolutely insane. And in the deep end. - Before we get into that, I wanna see if I can understand and the audience can understand sort of, what type of things are you learning about the building and the dismantling of the devices and how they work? What are the basic principles that you have to learn before you can find yourself anywhere near that position that you get to eventually in Afghanistan? - So I think as an ammunition technician, you understand the fundamentals of how explosives work, the science behind explosives. And then you kind of, you progress through your training to understand ammunition and whatnot. So the transition into bomb disposal is probably a little bit easier 'cause you already have that, the sort of grounding, the fundamental knowledge of explosives. And then to kind of be a bomb disposal operator, understanding different types of improvised explosive devices, terrorist organizations, how they utilized, understanding how to conduct what is known as threat assessment, understanding the entirety of a scenario, not just the device, why the device is there, who's placed it, who's the target, pattern set, et cetera, et cetera. That's actually the hardest part of becoming a bomb disposal operator. The actual rendering safe of a device is not necessarily hard. If we're talking about a device which utilizes an electrical circuit, essentially is picture turning on a light in your house. You know, you have a switch to turn the light on. Well, that would be the switch that causes the device to function. You have your electricity, which is the power. You would have the light bulb which comes on. You replace the light bulb with an initiator, a detonator, the part that makes the explosives goes bang. Well, they're the component parts for an ID. It's a simple circuit. So understanding that is pretty straightforward. And without diminishing what bomb disposal operators do, the difficult part is understanding threat assessment and getting threat assessment right. Why is the device there? So we train to such an ability, or such a standard, should I say, that you can turn up to a task without knowing anything about what's down the road at the target, the suspect item. And through detailed question technique and threat assessment, you can understand exactly what it's there and why it's there. So by the time you're stepping out down the road in the bomb disposal suit, you know exactly what you're dealing with. And that's what threat assessment is. So that's the hard part to understand that. The rest of it is skills and drills, repetition, muscle memory, et cetera, et cetera, being physically fit to be able to wear a bomb disposal suit and all the parts that come together. And utilizing that whole package of equipment, capability, knowledge, threat assessment, understanding everything, bringing it all together, that's what is the sort of fundamental part of being a bomb disposal operator, being able to bring all of that together, to be able to think outside of the box and get after it. And that's what our training provides us. What kind of mindset is required to be able to utilize all the technical skills that you have and the ability to assess, but doing so in a circumstance and situation that none of us could comprehend what that's like in the actual life and death space. - You know, it's all about the environment you're in as well. We could be in a completely non-permissive environment where we're in a training environment where the only thing you have to do is go down the road and deal with the issue. You start bringing complexities in a complex environment, a high-threat environment. There is an active enemy. There is active surveillance on you. You do have the pressures of, you know, if you're in an operation environment, coalition forces because you're the guy that's solving the problem, there is pressure behind you to get the job done so that they can progress in their mission, whatever that may be. So in a high-threat environment, you're not just looking at the device, you're looking at why the device is there, who the device is targeting, understanding what the device is and how it works. But then if it's targeting a coalition force, you need to understand why it's targeting them, what have they done to make that be there in the first place? You then need to think about, you know, not just those, but the troops around them have, is this device here to bring everyone into one area to target someone on a cord and position? Because previously when they've had a device, there's been a cord and position at 100 meters, they the target. And my the target is the bomb disposal operator, has another bomb disposal operator worked in this area before. Yes, he has, or she has, brilliant, what did they do with their actions targetable? Am I going to repeat something I did yesterday because I didn't know I was being watched yesterday, so now I'm being targeted by this device, so I've been called into it for them to target me or is it targeting someone else? Some people really struggle with that kind of second, third, fourth order effect, but we train people, and when we move from a sort of, I'm not going to say basic bomb disposal, because there is no such thing, bomb disposal is quite complex in itself, but the bomb disposal, and then the bomb disposal taking place in the environment that you're talking about, that you just described, that's something else completely. I don't need to know anything about your profession to know that all of these outside pressures that you just described, change everything about how you might think about it walking in. Absolutely, and it was also going to change what I do at the target, because as we did yesterday, we placed a precision tool to hit the power source in a specific way. Well, I might change something, if I've did that yesterday, what you did, tomorrow, I can't do the same thing, because if I was watched doing what you were doing, then there is something that's going to catch me out today, so it is this constant game of cat and mouse in a complex high-threat, high-temple environment where there is a professional terrorist organization, which targets EOD operators, because essentially we were ruining their fun. So if I do something today, if I walk down the left-hand side of a track today, tomorrow, I can't walk down the left-hand side of the track, because I'm guaranteed there's a device there waiting for me. Or if I go in, I will never lift something by hand ever, because tomorrow, the thing that I lifted today by hand, there's a bomb attached to it. So this is constant game of cat and mouse, this evolving kind of threat picture that always changes. So you've got to be on top of it, so complacency, you've got to be really, really careful, you've got to come up with new and wonderful ways to do stuff. It sounds like you could never become comfortable with routine. Like your routine is constantly needing to shift and adapt. You can never get comfortable. You've constantly got to evolve what you're doing, and there's only a certain amount of things you can do before you've got to repeat yourself. Now the way we kind of covered ourselves, certainly in Afghanistan, is we used excessive amounts of smoke and aids. If there are lines of sight into an area where I'm operating, all my guys are operating, then we would just screen that line of sight with smoke, we would just put copious amounts of smoke so that no one could see what we were doing. That gave us a little bit more freedom of movement because no one could see our actions, but that only works for so long. There's only certain amount of smoke and aids you can carry before you run out. When I had on the bomb suit yesterday, and we did the simulation of me taking the device to neutralize this bomb scenario inside of a car, a, the suit was, I wouldn't even call it heavy, it was cumbersome in a way that I didn't expect. The helmet alone, I think probably weighed like six or seven kgs. So like my next wobbling, and your whole spatial awareness change, and even though it was an improvised scenario, with the car that we were eventually was going to explode, I felt myself scared in a way that I didn't expect to be, and this was, we were just running a drill, you were teaching me. How does fear come into play in how you execute in that type of space? Fear is a really, really weird one. If you're not scared of something, then you're probably too far gone, and you probably need to have a bit of a reality check. But I don't think I was ever scared or fearful of doing a device. I think the three fears that I had was losing my guys, all my guys being injured. Letting the team down, and being really badly injured. From my side, it's like you're scared of surviving, because you know if you get injured, it's going to be bad. And you've got a whole new sort of ball game to get afterwards once it's gone. So it's almost like, if I'm going to go take me, I just want it done. So it's almost like fear of surviving. Wow. But I don't think I was ever scared or fearful of doing a bomb. I always used to say, if I don't get butterflies when I'm doing it, I shouldn't be doing it. Because I'm too comfortable in it. doing it. And I did get, I got a God complex when I was out there. And it was really, really but and it took one of my mates to physically slap it out of me because I didn't think I could die. I literally, I chased bombs because my, I mean my mates stew early on got, he did, he, he was awarded the George medal for the amount of devices he did early on in Afghanistan and he liked to smash the record. And my, my goal was to beat that. And I beat that really early on because that's because the amount of devices were insane. You know, at any one time, where they're like 10,000 devices in the ground in Afghanistan and I started chasing bombs. And I remember coming in and it was my, my boss at the time, my mate Jim and he said something to me like, well, you know, what have you done today? And I just did a throw away our six devices, piece of piss. And he literally grabbed me and he dragged me out the ops room and he was like, get a grip. I'll, I will pull you off the ground. You know, every one of these devices will kill you like the next one. Fucking stop acting like a dick. And I was like, and it looked, it was a bit of a condor moment for me. I kind of went back to my, sort of my, my bed space and sort of reflected on it. But equally we would be out on the ground and we'd be in a, you know, we get into a massive firefight with the enemy after what, after I've been pulling bombs out of the ground and we'd be in a compound. And the guys would be up on the compound wall returning fire and, and doing all of this. And then like, and I've just taken my body on my helmet off and just sit there and then like, you know, get down. I'm like, I'll be all right. I'm good. And it not going to get me. I've just been pulling bombs out of the ground all day. You know, there's, there's a massive firefight going on the background and it was just like, nah, you'll be all right. And it, it got to the point where when, when fire fights would happen, it would be an annoyance to me because I'm, I'm too busy trying to, trying to pull bombs out the ground and I'm there just, just shoot back. I'm busy. This is your problem, not mine. This is why you're here. And there's that fine line between confidence and arrogance and I crossed it a lot. Was there perhaps some sort of like a dopamine, like a high that you might have been in from what you were doing that gave you this ability to like, almost lose awareness? Yes. Like chasing the dragon. I mean, yeah, I was, when I was in the moment, I've always said there's, you will never get more of a buzz. And I think I said this to you. You will never get more of a buzz than walking down the road to something that will turn you into red mist in a second. Nothing at all like that. Walking down the road to a device, knowing that in any, you know, in a fraction of a second, you're gone. There's nothing in the world that can match that. And, you know, and I've also said, you know, I'm not, I wouldn't jump out of a plane. I wouldn't do that. You know, I'd rather walk down the road to an ID than lob myself out of an airplane. That's not for me. I'd be fearful of that. I'd rather do a bomb, you know, and it's, and it's just, it's just a really, really weird buzz, really, really weird buzz. And it's, and it's that chasing the dragon, you want the next one, you want the next one, you want the next one, certainly when you're an ops, because there's nothing worse than having a board bomb disposal operator. Just like they're going, well, what's the point in this? You need to actually need it. You need to get beyond the wire and you need to get after it. You hear the term, IED, but there's all different types of bombs. We put them on things, fly them, they drop, they can have rockets, all sorts of, what is, what is it about an ID that makes it an ID? So it's in its title, Improvised Explosive Device. So it is an explosive device that, which is improvised in manner. You know, you could take a conventional hand grenade, a fragmentation grenade, and it is designed to be a hand grenade. You put a fishing line on that hand grenade and tie it to a post so that someone walks through the fishing line, trips the grenade, well, you've turned a conventional munition into an improvised explosive device, because it is not designed to be used in that manner. It's now improvised. So something like that is still classed as an IED, or you go to the other extreme where you've got a terrorist organization and they mix homemade explosives like that yellow container that we blew up yesterday of whatever the homemade explosive is. That's right, whatever, yeah, and they make an improvised detonator. They're using switches, which are improvised in manner. Two pieces of metal separated with some sponge, that's improvised pressure switch, and that's an IED. And it doesn't look like a bomb. It's just component parts put together. It's not like the Hollywood bombs you see with a big timer on it and the big curly wires going into sticks at TNT and all that. You're a black, yeah, it's just, it's not like that. You mentioned that if you exposed your team for too long, the various ways in which something bad could happen. You're still sitting here. You live through every single scenario that you've ever been through in conditions that none of us could comprehend or would want to. I wonder if I might ask you what it is like on one of those bad days where you do lose someone to one of these devices. Yeah, it's hard, you know, we've all lost people and ops and friends and stuff. Bomb disposal community is very, very small. We're a very niche kind of group of guys and girls. So you get to work really closely with the guys that are across there and a buddy of mine, Dan, Shepherd, we kept in. We worked together, clearing a bizarre and helmet province, abandoned bizarre and our teams just worked together. We came together in an evening. We ate chow together, you know, slept together in a compound which we kind of occupied all this sort of stuff. And then we separated because, you know, we don't stay together. We kind of go and do our own things across the theatre. And I had a phone call while I landed in a patrol base and I got asked by the guy there, you need to ring your ops room. I remember ringing the ops room and it was our officer commanding ROC of the task force basically came on and said, "I need to tell you Dan has just been killed." And I remember for me, that was going to be in Dan and we were really, really close. We had a really, really kind of strong bond when we were working together. And to hear that he just died, oh man, it was like a kick in the gut, you know, and it was awful. But then also to hear that my team were going to go and essentially recover Dan's body. What was left of Dan's body was just even worse, you know, so I had to go and tell my guys who were really close with Dan was mega, really close to them saying, you know, Dan has just been killed. Give yourself a moment to get your heads around that. And by the way, we're now going to go and recover him. So we had to deploy out, go to the site of the explosion, clear him or clear the site, do sort of post blast analysis because obviously bomb disposal operator has been killed. We knew to know why and at the same time recover what was left of him. And you know, and essentially you're putting bits of your body into like a trash bag and you're like, that's physically what's left. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just brutal. But you know, that was a, but we, you know, my guys did that because obviously we do post blast analysis as well. So where other soldiers have been killed, you have to go back out and you, you know, you're recovering the soldier because essentially they're in an ID or a heavily laced ID area. So the only way to recover them is to clear. So, you know, putting, putting the team through to search through to recover fallen soldiers is, I mean, it's grim, man. So losing, losing guys and losing girls is hard. But it's just, it's war. It's just one of those things. That has a profound statement. Those two words, it's war. It's just a, it really puts in the context how foreign and different set of rules that you're existing and relative to the humanity that we are used to. I wonder how from, from a mental health standpoint, you're able to find ground again, long term. I mean, it can only be long term because you can't do it in the short term there. You know, the day on the ground in sanguine for my team. Where we saw death on a tremendous scale. And you injury. Contextually, like, what are we talking about? So, you know, we're on the ground. Two explosions, three guys killed. Those are guys injured. You know, walking wounded, mentally broken people. My guys having to recover parts of dead soldiers, bits of, you know, what's left of a torso, what's left of this, you know, go and get that guy's hand from over there. Four of them, you know, and then to come in. And I talk about, you know, there's no getting over it because we did that in the morning. And it's like, everyone alright? And the guys like going, yeah, you know, it's a bit crap isn't it? Right, brilliant, we've got another bomb, we're going out and you're gone, and you're getting after the next one. And then the next day you're putting another soldier in a body bag or a bin bag, 'cause that's all you've got. And then you go and then you're all right, everyone all right, okay, brilliant, move on. Get over it, we'll talk about it when we get back. Next one, go, go, go. That's not just the bomb disposal teams, we saw what we saw, but the guys on the ground that are on patrols and the guys are getting shot, the girls are getting shot. The people standing on devices, local nationals have stood on devices. Kids have been injured, so you've got medics on the ground that are trying to put kids back together, which have lost arms and legs and stuff, because, you know, IEDs aren't specifically targeting a certain individual, it's random. They're in the scrimmant. Absolutely in the scrimmant. So, and then you've got to go right, okay, I've just seen something terrible, which, you know, horrendous, which I never thought in a million years I'd see. Let's forget about it and move on to the next one, because we've just all got to job to do. So, short term, getting over stuff, it is very difficult in a high tempo environment, because you're just getting after the next thing and getting after the next thing. It's only when you sort of get back in where you have time to reflect and get after it, but for us, and me and my, certainly my buddies, we dealt with it with humour, laugh about it. You know, just get on with it, and you just put it in a box and lock it away, which is absolutely not healthy, absolutely not healthy. And it's only really kind of, not I think it's nine, 10, 11 years after the thing where we started to really, really see people that are struggling. Yeah. You got the George Cross, presented to you by the Queen, described what that is. So, the George Cross is a level one award, it sits next to the Victoria Cross, similar to the US Medal of Honor. I'm sitting in the same par. Yeah, so we have three levels of award, the Victoria Cross and the George Cross, sit at the top of those levels. It was described as an honour for perhaps the greatest bomb disposal that took place in Afghanistan. After everything that you just described to me, which is just, horror, you worked in a theatre of horror. What's that like when now, you're being given this honour, you're standing before the Queen, and people who are dressed finally with all sorts of protocol, et cetera. I wonder what that dance is like mentally to receive this honour, but also no one in the room being able to perhaps comprehend what that actually was. Yeah, it's a really strange one, you know, because you're being awarded or you're being honoured for an action. So it's always good to get recognition for stuff that you do, you know. What did you receive the George Cross award for? I mean, in the sort of broad strokes, me and my team were deployed into sang-in in Helmand, on patrol with the Rifles Battle Group, a couple of explosions took place which injured and killed a number of soldiers, and my team responded because we were embedded with the call sign. Essentially helped recover the injured soldiers. There were a number of devices that were in peeding that evacuation which I had to render safe. And then my team and I managed to recover the fallen, the injured, and everyone else that was there to extract them from the battlefield. But you know, you've got to remember, and I think as I said to you yesterday, it's never an individual effort. Certainly with bomb disposal, you're never on your own on the ground. You're always, all right, there's elements of the time where you will be the furthest person forward. But you're there supported by your search team, you know, the guys and girls that are intricate parts of that capability. The day on the ground in sang-in, I wasn't on my own. My searches were the guys that found the devices for me to render safe. So they put themselves at risk to do it. They were the guys that recovered the injured soldiers and helped recover the dead soldiers. My part of that was to render the devices safe. Okay, so it's good to be honored. And recognized for work that you've done. And interesting you should say because no one really knew. I didn't, until the night before, I didn't know, I kind of had an understanding what I was getting the award for. But when you are, when you are nominated, you don't get to see your citation of your write-up. But for level one awards, they read that out in Buckingham Palace so that everyone can know. So I remember my mum being there, my brother being there. And I think the first thing my mum did was punch me afterwards. You didn't tell me what you did. Because I did, you know, you know, I did bomb disposal. That's it. But the intricacies of that day were read out. And so the kind of, the penny dropped for her, the penny dropped for my brother. And it sort of brings it all home. But there is such a contrast, yes, between the people there and what you've done. And, you know, hearing that day read out takes you back. And I remember me. I was like having to swallow hard when they were reading it out. And I can't remember that. I forgot about that bit. But I remember that bit. And you know, it's hard, you know. But you're there for a reason. If anyone gets recognized for anything, then that's fantastic. The guys, everyone should, everyone that steps into an operational theatre should have recognition. Everyone that stops, that steps beyond the wire. Certainly someone like Afghanistan should get recognition because that's cowboy central, man. It's crazy. It's absolutely, it's the Wild West out there. It really, really is. And, and as I said, yeah, it's great to be recognized for stuff that you do. Of course it is. But it also reminded me of how horrendous, horrendous that that tour was. I mean, you know, 2009, 2010 in Afghanistan, Helmut brought back across the entire of Afghanistan. But certainly for the British troops. You know, you hear about the guys and girls that have been killed. But quite quite about the guys and girls that have been injured. Right. You know, so many people that have been injured. So many people. And it's not just physically, the mental impact as well. It's just absolutely insane. We just think of injury and it can seem very surface. But what lies within injury and what you've experienced is something else entirely. It has a lot of layers to it, I think as you said. It's not about the physical injury. The overarching, you know, part you have when you deploy or you get injured, whatever it may be, it's the knock on effect from it. Yeah, physical injury can be recovered from, etc. or not the mental injury that accompanies that. Combine that together and, you know, people's, people's struggle, man, you know. I've seen it a lot. Yeah. Imagine that people transition out of the service in different ways. Some people, I'm done. I'm going to go and try and live as civilian a life as possible and put those experiences behind me. You've chosen to keep a foot in, if you will, in that you now train others around the world to do what you did at the highest level. Why? So I think for me, it's maintaining my sort of skill set. So that I don't lose fundamentally who I am. And I love it. I absolutely love it. And I've always said when I stop loving something, I'll stop doing it. And currently, and to this date, I still enjoy doing it. I'm very fortunate that I work with some fantastic people. And real passionate people, you know, bomb disposal guys and girls to do the job. You've got to be passionate about it. That's not just bomb disposal. That's everything in life, you know. Whether you're into driving cars for a living or, I don't know, whatever firefighting or whatever that mean. You've got to be passionate about doing it. And I've always maintained that passion. And I'm inspired by early operators that are passionate about it and want to learn. I want to go that one step further and better themselves to understand. And if I can do that and pass on that knowledge that I have gained through my time in the military and my experiences, then why wouldn't I do it? And I absolutely love it. I love the job. What does it mean? to be able to look in the rear view mirror and also forward as you're spreading this knowledge out to others, that that that that base reason is to save lives and to know that you have actively saved and are teaching others to preserve life. I mean, there's there's no greater reward than that. I'm knowing that you are preventing someone from being injured or killed or maimed or whatever it may be by doing that, whether you're putting yourself at risk or not, it's just one of those things. And for me, I think that that's probably one of the greatest rewards of doing what we do. You're saving people's lives. Why else would we do it? Why else would we put ourselves at risk, put ourselves on the line? The good thing about being in the military, you're not bogged down with your own mortality. The buddy buddy system and the camaraderie that is generating within the military is all about looking after the guy next to you because he will look after you. So being able to pull bombs out the ground and saving your comrade by doing that and the other people and the other guys and girls that are deployed is huge. For me, it's very rewarding. How do you think that you'd be adapting to general population life? That was the choice you made. I think I would have struggled because this is a job I love. A job I found my calling in Northern Ireland. This is something I wanted to do. I think if I had left the military and gone into something else, I think I would have yearned to come back to it. I've spoken to loads of guys and colleagues that have done exactly that. They've gone out. They've kind of dipped their toe into something else and always come back to bomb disposal or elements of it or something that is associated to it. Because we train all our career to do this job and as I said, you've got to be passionate about doing the job. To walk away from something you're really passionate about is quite difficult. I can't imagine doing anything else. I get the sense in the short time that we've spent that continuing to have a portion of yourself, a adjacent in teaching others and being in the space, maybe a bit of active therapy for you. More than likely, keeping my hand in, keeping me busy, keeping me occupied. A lot of guys that struggle with leaving the military, and that's a massive part. Leaving the military, leaving that camaraderie, leaving that kind of brotherhood behind is difficult in itself because it's not just an organisation, it's not a job, it's being in the military as a family. It's a life. So guys that get out and struggle just in the general terms of not being in that space anymore, but to then step away from doing bomb disposal. I think you've hit the nail massively on the head there. I don't suffer with PTSD or what not. Maybe I do, I just haven't realised it. A lot of people struggle. I think, yeah, you're right, this class is my own time. If I'm on the range and I'm blowing stuff up or if I'm doing some explosive trials or the stuff we did yesterday, that for me is my sort of Zen place. Love it. I did not think I would hear Zen applied to it, but I could see that in reflection. Again, for those who watch the show and what we did on the Team Ignition YouTube channel, we blew up a car. And actually we went sort of up the chain from very small explosives up to finally rendering a car, just gut it. The ratio of the explosives that left that car destroyed yesterday compared to what you saw in the field, contextually, like what are we talking about in the difference? I mean, we destroyed that car with 900 grams of plastic explosive. The average size device in Afghanistan was 20 kilos. Sometimes in excess of 50, 60 kilos. So a lot. A lot. Well, Kim, I can say this. I wish that we lived in a world where the services and skills of you and your colleagues around the world were not necessary. But I am thoroughly grateful that people like you that are selfless in the way that you are have chosen to do what you do in the interest of protection and safety of others. And I really appreciate the manner in which you're able to tell these stories so candidly. Because what you're recalling is not anything that anyone should actually ever experience. But you paint a picture that I think just gives us really, really powerful context that it's not a game what you do and what you teach others to do. And I'm grateful for the time that you've spent with us to give us the experience, but also to really share what it is that you do. Thanks, mom. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Kim. For those of you watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit that like and subscribe button. And for even more, go to teamignition.net. Every kid that I grew up with is jealous of me right now. This is ridiculous. How much failure? Oh, more failure than success. Please, I know. I'm just batching Mountain Rescue to your location now.