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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.

Time is my only enemy these days.

June 22, 2012
Development, Military work
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It now seems like such a long time since I was out in Afghanistan, in real terms it was.  Three months is such a long time.  We move on quickly, get back into the swing of things in our day to day jobs.  I am now (for those who have not been paying attention) back in Germany with my family.  Still working in the Army, yes we still have some of the Army based here (not for too much longer though).

This job does not seem like a job much really, it really is a shock to the system to enjoy my job as much as I do and in fact I have been known on many occasions to feel real guilt as I see people around me slumped and dejected as they struggle through the week to get to the weekend.

None of that for me, many weekends I am behind the camera enhancing my skills and keeping looking for a way of doing things I have not tried before.

One of the most exciting parts of this job is the variation.  This week has been a prime example, for three days I was chasing soldiers around a live range trying to capture images for their local press who had come out to visit.  Then there was the small matter of photographing a high brow event in Hannover city center to commemorate the Queen’s birthday and then today I spent the day photographing handicapped children as they climbed all over military helicopters.

 

All this work needs to be processed and dispatched to whoever wants it.  Not a five minute job.  So my long suffering wife has to watch me sitting at the laptop most of the evening.

Ah, a negative!  Perhaps the only one.  Sometimes there really is just never enough time in the day.  I need to get a new watch……………

One with a 27 hour day.

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