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Exit strategy, or is it entrance strategy?

June 15, 2020
Advice, Development, From the Archive, Opinion, Support
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I’m out of here!

Twenty five years! Twenty five years where work has been more than just a job. It’s been an experience, that is for damn sure. There have been laughs, tears, a lot of tears, great times, the worst of times. I will leave with memories, some I wish I didn’t many more that I’m glad of. You know, on reflection, it’s been pretty good overall. More than pretty good to be fair.

Life does not stand still for any of us. It constantly shifts, evolves more than we realise. It’s like when I go for a slow jog, I don’t feel like I’m moving very fast (we have got so used to moving quickly), but every once in a while, look back. You move quicker and farther than you realise.

I guess it all comes down to perspectives after all. You should always remember that your own is just your own. Everybody in your life has their own too. Don’t take it for granted that everyone sees yours.

So the exit ramp is coming up and I can’t see what is around the corner. Most people manage to survive the journey though so the odds are pretty good, hey?

One of the most important things I have ever learnt is not to live in fear of the future, it’s a pointless exercise. You don’t know what will happen tomorrow any more than anybody else. Opportunities come and go, people come and go. I guess all you can try to do is be a person that is positive, always trying to better than yesterday and you will have good people around you most of the time. If someone decides they can’t stay, remember that they have their own shit going on.

I write this during a break where I am preparing a big presentation, an ambitious project that I will be sad not to be able to see through to the end, but I stand resolute that it is the right way forward. Sometimes that is all you can do.

I smile now and remember that happiness is always within your grasp, it’s a choice (most of the time). Choose it for yourself…

Thanks for listening.

George Floyd.

June 2, 2020
Macro, Opinion, Support
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Tears of the grassland. Sometimes the green green grass of home just does not feel so green.

I find myself (as just another white privileged male) thinking about what is going on in the United States of America. With over 60,000 people having died of #Covid19 so far, the riots seem at odds to my United Kingdom. We are told to socially distance and yet there are thousands of people coming together to fight for their beliefs in spite of the risk.

It makes me think. I don’t know how I feel. I am sad that Mr Floyd’s life has ended, of course. I’m sad that it is at the hand of another ‘white’ policeman. I’m partially bemused by the repetitious nature of this incident. It feels like I’ve seen all this before.

The fact is, I have… we all have.

It’s got me thinking about racism, what it actually is. I don’t think we understand it at all. We seem to have this perception that racism is some kind of violent attack (physical or verbal) on someone who ‘looks’ different to ourselves. It’s not. I think it is much more nuanced than that. In most cases it’s much gentler than that. Yes, you heard me, I said that racism can be gentle, passive. Here lies the problem. We make it out to be so easy to remove the scourge of racism from our society, but the fact remains, it remains. It is there, it is not often violent or even identifiable, but it is there.

I don’t think that most people think they are racist, in fact they will often stand up against racism because it’s wrong, right? Of course it is. We can rationalise it and it’s very wrong yet it survives.

I don’t think it’s truly possible to understand racism unless you have been subject to it. I don’t mean being beaten or spat on or verbally abused. I mean simply being treated differently, being looked at in a certain way, being labelled, being pre judged.

Racism isn’t about the violence, that is just a disturbing consequence perpetrated by a minority. It is cultural, it is systemic and it is self perpetuating and lives in a strange situation where our denial to accept that it is more prevalent than we wish to believe, keeps a society from actually dealing with it.

It’s uncomfortable. My knee-jerk reaction is to deny it, even to myself… but am I then simply allowing it to continue?

I offer no solutions. I really don’t know what the solution is, if indeed there really is one to be had. Clearly something has to change but human nature and its insecurities will always get in the way.

By all means comment and give your point of view, I would love to hear from you. In the mean time my thoughts go to the family of George Floyd and those close to him left behind and I say that with the utmost sincerity.

What is bravery?

February 28, 2012
Afghanistan
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As I sit here getting ever closer to the end of my latest tour of duty, I contemplate the mind set of the British soldier.  This may or may not be one of the most dangerous places on the planet, probably not but it is still dangerous.  It makes me wonder exactly what bravery is.

Is it simply brave to just be here?  Is it brave to step outside the wire?  Is it brave to fly those flying chariots that are our primary mode of transport here?  Is it brave to don all of your PPE (Personal protective equipment)?  Is it brave to poke your head up over a wall in the middle of Helmand?

 

I am not sure.  These are the day to day experiences of some of the soldiers out here in Afghanistan.  Although you feel trepidation prior to any of the above, when you get there, you just go, do your business and the training takes over.  You are so busy looking, thinking, observing, watching, you don’t really have the time to be worried.  We don’t constantly worry about every step, or that it could be your last.

 

I certainly don’t feel brave when in the relative safety of Camp Bastion.  I don’t feel ‘brave’ when I go out on patrol, I don’t feel ‘brave’ when I fly in the Merlin or Chinook and I certainly don’t feel brave wrapped up in my PPE (only bloody heavy).

So what is brave?

I had the good fortune this week to photograph a soldier who had been lucky.  He had been shot by an insurgent, whilst on patrol in Helmand.  Luckily for him he was saved by his body armour, the round embedding into his back plate.

Armed with what remains of the round, we were tasked to get some photographs of Trooper Dan Griffiths for the UK press, I asked him how he felt.  He told me that he ‘worried’ now.  During the incident he was knocked down with such force that he truly believed he was seriously injured.  He admitted to screaming in pain, clambering for cover.  Only when checked over by his comrade was he then aware he had escaped injury and just how lucky he was.  Dan is now one of the few who knows what it feels like to be shot and I am sure it is not an experience he would like to repeat, yet he still has to endure, he still has patrols to go on, operations to take part in, be part of a team.

Simply put, in light of his experiences, in my eyes, Trooper Griffiths is brave.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/4156468/Squaddie-shot-in-the-back-but-battles-on.html