Ivan, welcome to Dance Knows History it once a week we go back into our archives and dig out episode that those of you who've recently joined us might not have heard. And this week, it's my great pleasure to bring you the one and only Victor Gragg. He comes on this podcast affair, but he's now into his third century on planet Earth. We had a special podcast a year and a half ago to celebrate his one 100th birthday. I'm pleased to say that he's still in good health.

He has survived covid in his current sheltered accommodation. And I'm looking forward to going checking out with him when we're allowed to do so. This is the second of a two part podcast that I recorded with Victor Gregg just about his life and career in the Army. He's sort of a little bit of the Forrest Gump of the Second World War. He was in North Africa, Italy on and then he was taken prisoner of war and ended up in a prisoner of war camp in Dresden in East Germany.

He was there on the 13th of February this week in 1945, when British and American heavy bombers incinerated the city of Dresden. He has some pretty painful memories and he has some very forthright views about that particular raid. I took him to Dresden, a history project when he was 98, a couple of years ago. Now we returned to Dresden and you can watch that documentary on history, hit TV very emotionally, met up with other survivors of the Dresden raid, a German lady in particular, who had a huge impact on him.

It was a child at the time of the bombing. You can go and watch that on history. Hit Dot TV is the new History Channel that we've launched hundreds of hours, history documentaries and all of the back episodes of this podcast there to be listened to for small subscription. You get to join and help us create a completely new History Channel for proper history fans. We've also got a lot of talk this autumn. Please come and check it out.

Go to history at Dotcom's. Slashed all tickets. Would be great to have you along in the flesh. Share a beer and a laugh and some talks by history. In the meantime, everyone enjoy this episode picks up halfway through his wartime experience with the one and only Victor Greg.

Is he saw two of his friends killed and went mad. Yeah, why? The same thing happened to me when when? When Frankie got killed. Frankly, Barry is another one of the lads was one of the lads who joined up with me, frankly, that was one of the six who are taking the train down to Winchester with and he lived in both Bomb Road. We were all Londoners. And Freddie Mac is in his 50s out of my full of more bombs and stuff like that.

And what is on is a big company within big company, and they're right out the front and we're sitting back and he carries he's got nothing to do it from or moderately about 200 yards away from him. But he was out of immediate danger from small arms are concerned. So if you can imagine it and outcomes they struck with a pile of dust and outcomes. Francie's they were like laughing, you know, all of them. And we're talking about things.

We've got to get going. I've got to get going. So and so. He jumps in the truck and he goes and he read about the George under 150 yards.

Thank you. Trump blew up and I don't know how to describe it as a show or a mind or whatever. Is one of these more bombs that were already primed. He might have gone over a bomb and now bloody don't blow. I don't know. The answer to that is.

Oh, God, I can't comment on always. And I think our his name in the book, I jumped in the carry and he jumped in with me and we make our way over to his truck, jumps out and Frank is still sitting in the seat, still sitting in the truck, all annoyed and what's left of it. And he's sitting in say so awful. I put him and put him out. So I guess, how do I get hold of it?

And I'll try him out from this because I thought he's fifteen hundred. Right. So no. Well, drive him out, I will judge him at the bottom of and you can win to love me Faith. That was it. So why weren't there then, as the case is stunning to see what might say and I've lost all sense of reason. I've lost all sense reason. I can't remember. I didn't even know for a moment, and you give me a ride and not me, Royo.

Yeah, right. And that took me back because he just wants to shout at the Germans. Yeah. Now I was trying to do a repeat of what is he done? I didn't realize what I was doing. And you'll be all right when you wake up. It's only a bit of a bruise. That's right.

There's nothing unusual in that sort of behavior. That's the sort of thing what goes on doesn't get put down in books and journals. Nobody writes about things like that. It may be the the people who were closely involved, remember, and more joy than later on in life. But it's one of the things what is normal at the First World War where those who were in trenches, Second World War was a mobile war. And he was always on the move and he was always with the same bloke.

So if anything and any of you felt. And yeah, yeah, I've worked for five years, right? And then I went into perjurers set on. I could look on anybody's been dead body and say, what about my, you know. You say in the book you can never cleanse your mind of the horror of you. How do you live with it if it's not with you all the time? Not horror, because you sign another form the for the for which it was never I don't think that affected me all that much.

What sent me the way eventually somebody was dressed in.

In six years of war, never been in a situation where it was all men killing each other, there are no women and children and old people. Because Dresden, of course, was on Sunday night aware of what total war it is not, soldiers are getting killed and murdered. These innocent women and children who got all they want to do is to have a quiet life and they're being put in an oven, they burn in a definite oven, roasted alive.

That's what sent me that that morning. That's what that maybe was up to Dresden. Even when we when I was, you know, when they sentenced me and Harry to death, said, you're going to be shot in the morning, even that insane converged on me. I've got to be somewhere. You know, you're still alive. So he says they're going to shoot us in the morning. I only get my never every was a real nutcase.

They come Yoshie that I did that.

A lot of that, I think a lot of the day that I that's what they're going to do. They're going to kill us because we're told anybody committed sabotage short and we'd burn a bloody soda factory down, not just a little bit of sabotage, but incinerated old factory stop their support. So for a couple of weeks.

But now it was everything changed me in the next five days I was interested in. The first the first 24 hours in the bombing and then in the aftermath when I was on this clearing up business with this nut case of a gentleman who is using charges, a local fire brigade or wherever, he was even a real nut case. But he was right on the station blog, even if he did kill two people for refusing to do what he told them that, well, I didn't put our guys name.

So margarine, then sort of margarine. This farming village that we're standing on and wondering what to do now, because I'm talking about something now average, no people wonder what I'm talking about because all this happened and we're not just ignoring what was those last few days of all night like?

Well, the last few days, because we never had any grub running out of everything, there was more to be had in some of the colleges and houses. But if he wasn't here as you had no water, you don't have to. Part of it was it was a bit noisy. And we all realize that, you know, that we wasn't going to get relief now and that was it. So then we heard that it came through on the perimeter because I was still I was sure no one, although a different crew to watch TV and radio had three different crews.

And although they not one by one and I'm still alive and I'm no one. Not the one who who's sitting up. And now the two brothers, number two and three, whose job is is to manage a they're lying down now in his belly. And that was once you got killed. And it's me saying I belong there and I'm sure that I will make it out anyway, so. I was one of the few because what was left. So anyway, we were on this perimeter and now we're on Alabama where I live.

That's also where this young officer who I'd never seen before and he said, I'm going to go back and save on imports of ammunition. So, OK. And then he comes back after about 20 minutes. It's just there's nobody there. You see, they've all gone and they assailant still telling me I won't go. And he thinks that the Germans are in the hotel now, which is about 150 yards away from us, 200 yards. And we're further to the south.

Further to the east. So where do they want to hide the boat, trying to pull out a gun and dismantle it and get around FISA, which one might or like to make a way out somehow if we can.

Did you feel that you've been abandoned? Hey, do you feel you know, I was a regular soldier. I knew jolly well that if you're on the perimeter, you were there, too. And I really have no sugar. Well, no, no, I'm not. I'm not happy about 25. I was educated in that sense. I knew exactly what was happening. But at the same time, I also knew. The I mean, I'm in the thick of Michigan, you're not going to go charging, they're going to send your child, you know, to catch us some point because you can't do it carrying 50 pounds with a bigger machine, with another 10 feet of belt dangling, you just can't run.

So now your job is to stop their take on a child. And if anything comes near the end of it, say that they already run out of ammo completely. There is nothing that an man left in their rivals. Well, I think there's only four of us, actually, four of us. We're now four or five anyway. So what we're going to try to get to Amsterdam, which direction is of national accord, regardless of which is no?

Well, I need a river and that wise has got to be that way. So we knew it wasn't until we disappear again. And I found this two days later, they found us absolutely starving, you know, one in a ditch, the greatest. So that was it. It was captured and sort of tried this go this transit camp where they keep order. I had houses which were fixed into the sexperts. And if you go there, I really switch houses on a new day.

You plastered your own shit, so.

Said that it is good because his method of any keeping in unruly crowds in order. From there we went to 4B within 48 hours of never going to get out or be too big. You volunteer for the work and that's where I ended up. And he said that we have a yet. So, yeah, that's right.

You can we can we can we can talk about Dresden. Well, as you know, I mean, I tried to escape twice from this prisoner of war camp or got captured after all, and as a analagous in charge of this network. And he was an old old German Matlow shiner in the German navy. And he had little goatee. Beard is arriving, by the way. So he says he had to punish me for trying to escape. So way down, he got one of his clothes to go down.

He went down to the village and they just said it and got me a pair of wooden clogs. We just sold by that date about two inches thick. I was overseas for them whole right here, because you're going to get a job out of some factory and it's six kilometres away and you got a game. And this is in February when the snow that deep and it's coming down, the flights come down with the suit plates. Not not this little stuff we have over here.

This is little snow coming down, you know, in Bavaria. So you won't get the snow soap factory until they decide they don't want it anymore. Then you come back. So I figure, like, I've got nobody with me. You just tell me which way to go. And that's where I win, because I used to send us our little jobs to represent the have have anybody in charge of us. We just got this big sign on the back to ask if I'm going to Kaiji.

I'll never be because you know, you could be home galbi you just couldn't get why you never really grew up in the middle of winter and then you burn the factory down.

Well our job at the job they put us on because it was a soap factory, they never had any fat, no oil. And all that was Pommie powder, which as you know, lots of probably powder as well as shrimp that they would be the Navy get that way. And that's what they are. Washerwoman used to use only one boat. So it's probably powder and it looks the same as cement, same color. And our job was to shovel this probably powder in the dishwasher.

Right. Wheelbarrows, push it all out. The snow in the mouth of these big revolving miksa. That was our job that he's doing now. And then he said to me, we know she's Italians who are over the other side of the building. We were very buoyed by twenty feet. And they've got this big pile of cement, what they're using to build this wall with Sirius's. I'll tell you what, we put two barrels of cement. And he said that the permit to sort everything out.

Oh, yeah, I big enough. We do that. Yeah. Yeah. Let's have a go teacher bastard. Yeah. That's what we did. And there is nothing technical about it. So frightening. It was all done. The bloke who was in charge used to rub the stuff together with his hands and what he told you right consistently the machine would stop and they would unload it onto these big trays, which is the lower end of indents in it, and then another bloke would go with a broom.

I'm the level.

And that's how it was Labour coaches and they go in the oven. But it was a war. You couldn't understand it. Why? It was water and it wasn't like whatever, why wasn't taking him. So he said, we've put too much water and we'll leave it till the morning and the water dry might be all right halfway through that. No, I realised what was going to happen occurred to me. Sure enough, he gets up the next morning, start work on there at six o'clock on time, and he's got this whacking great big lever, the governor.

And until at the end of it is a bit of rope, which at the top in the roof is fixed to another another sort of a star. Another thing, he pulls down the thing and the stop and nothing happens. We need to start another go off, but nothing's happening. And machinery then the lights haven't come or nothing. And then somebody is aware that the old war is going on.

So, so. So you and your mate manage to burn down a factory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because the factory was saturated in oil because it had been a soap factory for donkeys years for other than them, but that's what they used to do, like soap, presumably they fancy's how things were used to selling them, basically based on. So they know all of that. There was plenty of it embedded in the roof and stuff like that.

So there was a lawyer. They never had any spares. I mean, they never had any fuses. They support six inch now in between homogenizes a fuse. That's how bad they were off. They had nothing the Germans at that time in the war zone. Right. So, of course, I mean, they're pretty great. Ain't stupid. They started out with us away in this van.

And as we moved away, that covered the roof or anything like that, it sparks and flying and we could hear the lads cheering. Yeah, but we was inside the van, so they took us up to these guys are interesting. Chose to go inside Dresden and he comes in and we're sitting at this table in his big bushell. If it's not like a big old ring in a council chamber, you know, and he comes in, he's got black silver buttons, he's got a signature, he's got red area or red the swastika, er he's got the lock and he's rattling through what we've done sign telling us that we've committed sabotage and he's going to send us to another place.

So er he said this sort of thing. Well was that it might. So I said you go there and you'll be shot tomorrow morning for sabotage.

Oh so. And I was trying to make it out of him telling me he can't understand it and he's talking not it. Trying to obstruct and get very big or Oxford or Cambridge because he's quite a lot of German educated Germans have been in Britain and er is telling me he can't understand it and I'm kicking around at a table, could feel the floor moving, but apparently quite a you know this.

And how did you escape from that.

Well he goes in his big place which is full of people of different nationalities or I'm sitting in the window absolutely jam packed with him, about four or 400 of them in this place and at a sort of a roof which come out a couple of glass. So this crowd is saying that, you know, the big blokes in our area will begin in those you know, we're full of it, you know, fully trained. So we're kicking them, shoving our way through that place.

But we'll sit down. And I said, I'm going to have walk round, he says. And right. They call me they call me Mac because everybody called me back because my name is Greg MacGregor. The army is they army say, you know, he comes back with a couple of Americans there waiting to be shot for him. And I said there's no need to worry because that's how you get up every morning and that's the last you see over.

But it's about 400 of us in here. And if they do it properly and we're at the back of the queue, the we will be on board in that was the general idea. He selected us, although I didn't think much of it before we saw that you're going to see what they're going to shoot. But anyway, he does take you down to the east. You know, you're not worried about your that much. So we refuse all the personal grumble come in because it was horrible and we wasn't all that angry and all that point and then about and he stole and we did it.

The Pflueger alarm go off the air right along. So nobody's worried because I think we're here every night. And so they think it's only going to be a Chemnitz night anyway. I see all about 60 or 70 miles away. But it wasn't because we saw those streamers coming down through the glass roof. So that was it. So that after a couple of an hour and then when the mosquitoes had left and the bombers come over and a load of these incendiaries come down through to Karbala and killed everybody underneath, cool all the light.

And you couldn't put it out because you just couldn't get them out. They were all burnt alive. And then after about another quarter now, this morning, a bomb landed outside the building and blew the building a bit. So many of the buildings standing and the roof was dangling order and all got blown out the other side of the room covered in masonry and and dust and enter.

I suppose I've always thought it was it must have been seconds under a minute when I came to Esraa voiceover and and then I managed to open the eyes and then I might be right back. As for recruit's, where he was, what, you couldn't recognize anything and he was still against his little bit wall. There is a door now blocked and there's nothing left inside him. And the blood had come out of every Abitur in his body. So I covered him up with his loyalty and I covered everything.

And then the way the world is creaking, I know I be outside. You're listening to Dance Notes History. I'm talking to World War Two veteran Victor Gregg more after this. Does your wallet need to go on a diet, getting a better night's sleep, it's never been more affordable, especially if you overspent in the online January sales with a Nektar mattress.

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And what was it like outside in the firestorm? Not many of those go out. I was only about four elders and so he's standing outside, but it was like a bonfire would come out of this building and everything is on our outside. There's still a lot of these incendiary things are still coming down and their allies are coming down here in a forest of fire. And it's beginning to get warm, not really unbearably. Oh, yeah, the moment, but it's getting warm and everything is a lie all around.

You see, you get the impression you get first of all, there's nowhere to go. You can't decide what's going to happen. But in these circumstances, there's always somebody who will lead off always without fail. So some days, whoever it was had managed to walk in some particular direction. And we all followed him. And eventually and I was lucky because I wouldn't, John. Which enable me to walk over all the fire stuff, what was on the ground and a lot of the blows didn't have that, they couldn't make it.

You just they were just dropping from one part of land or another. And you gets out eventually. And we land in this place where there's a massive industrial park or some grass or anyway, which was still grass and burnt out. Yeah.

So we take a show, it was not a good show, there's no fire around, you see, and the bombs have stopped by then. The ride was over and then after a time, we see this group of Germans coming out. And I was pushing his big car and they ride Omeish on, they set one blow and he had a cap on and I thought, who's in charge? And he was an Israeli nutcase trying to find people who were sure I was walk about serviceable.

Sure thing. You know, and he comes up to us and I just showed up, picks out the ones you want and more or less tells us in German, you know, follow me. And he uses shovels of the car and there's a free brochure. I wouldn't go. So he pulled out a revolver and shot two of them right away. And now a bloke he wanted to join us, he so I thought we found in our film.

Then I thought we saw, well, you got to have discipline in a situation like this, even if it comes to that what he's just done, it didn't occur to me that I'd done anything wrong, that's for sure. Along the way at that time, the fact that he butchered these people, these two without any thought, any hesitation or just pulled out a gun, John.

And I went along with it mentally. What was the scene like in Dresden? Everything was a lie. So the idea was to get back and he wanted to find a shows where people were in and he wanted to get them out. So but we didn't get very far because then the second year I went, so we had to withdraw our guide and we and we got out a little bit further away from no sort of a near a railway. I don't I don't think it was a main railway line, but it was a railway line.

I never said it was sort of a depression. We ran for several down there. And then, of course, the bombs came down again. And this time we realized that the first ride was nothing. That was 600 planes, only 500 planes dropping in, say, incendiaries and 500, 2000 pound bombs. There was nothing like this having all come out of a 4000 pound blockbusters and whacking great drums full up with whatever was used to catch fire in all these great things.

When they land on the ground, it's a sort of big spread of flame goes out. It goes out. Andrew Jones, I, despite everything, incinerated in them. So that ride went on for about another hour before the last stragglers are gone. So everything's alight now and the wind's coming in to feed the fire. So we couldn't do much. We couldn't do or you could do is to lie on the ground because there's nothing that's a no show.

There's a lot of ground and hope for the best. And you can feel the heat there was building up know we were about 50 yards away from the nearest buildings and it was outside of Dresden. But it was it was a sort of a place which was open and. Everything will look at everything, and then you got all these winds coming in to feed the fire about it is about 3:00 o'clock in the morning thing when he decides that he's going to have another try to get inside this place.

I know he just rolled up and then we go and we're still going in. And he did. Right. And he's still I am Raffan anywhere we but we got to a point where we could go down further. You can't breathe.

And then the wind is you hold on something because if you don't know don't know anything or have anything to hold on it, I really don't know each other. But if you if you lost contact and you didn't have the strength to fire and you just get washed away and that's what happens.

All the women and kids who were climbing out, because when the first light finished after back home, now they start coming out safe from wherever they are below the ground and they think it's all over. And there was an echo in the next stop and they can't get back in time and they're all alive. And there's women and women with their close ally. And they do kids all through this room with this little kid, you know, this little kid.

And she's drawn up in here and this sort a big ball of fire which was going up in the sky. And then presumably when it hit the top, they dropped out today. I don't know the answer. You can't explain it. You just cannot explain what it is like. Yes. As I said before, I had five years for him. And then and then she remained close remains to me. So what about when you if you ever come into contact, once you come into contact with that sort of total war aspect where innocent people, innocent women and children and when I come overcaution and I don't like I really might be friends for the better off always respond because I always saw that we were the good guys and we was going to save Europe from all the horrible things I learned his mates were doing.

And then we finished up in war survivor committing genocide. It was no word for it. It was unnecessary. I just felt ashamed of being British. And of course, I didn't have to stick up for that if I'd been in any way to avoid mind or probably probably going to be unbearable. But I've got enough strength and the unfairness to say, well, I was there and I saw it. I know I know what I'm talking about. I know.

And I don't make all the excuses under the sun. And I'll never forgive them. Never. For what will happen, and it wasn't only and he still carried on doing after that and never done it before to call people, they saw it Elfy Hammelburg. And it were successful and they built on it in the book, you say it's very disturbing when you say what you witnessed after the Dresden, you escaped, you saw the Red Army and what the Red Army was doing for the Germans.

It was terrible.

Well, there again, I was I've got a away. I got away. I was going to go west again for so you can see all the firing going on. So forward, as one of the least, I managed to get over the Elbe without any trouble and I thought that was a bad luck. Nobody stopped me. And I'm scratching food of all these refugees who are coming from from the east. Crust of bread is stuff like that, and they don't show any sense for the first night.

And also had some crush on me, bread, you know. And I'm pretty sure I'm a coward. I don't know if you're Jeb Bush or not, these clocks and so forth, I'm cool about it. I think I'm a gentleman, but I was so tired and so bloody angry and I saw these players coming through the bushes. So I went up forward remains. I'm so available for ways over this way or the other. And I was so tired of that worry.

I really didn't worry. And they took me in first when I put my relative, other groups of Germans and some other nationalities here that captured. And then there was an officer come around. It was a terrible but he can speak a little bit of English. And that was a fragile thing to come around first, but then it would come around, you could speak English. So he said, well, he said, you know, there's no this law noise said you can see up in the lobby of the Everglades, you know, with the Germans who are going for us.

And the next morning they could start the bloody thing up. A Chevrolet was something I got of all of the Americans and I knew all about Chevrolet because of that, I mean, you know, D.J.. And so and they're just about to pour ocean front to put it, they are so lifted up about it a little bit by bit, right. And they were all pulled out. Adelaide's water will dry out. The distributor can't draw them off because you covered it, missed it back, and they got a little shovel.

Never had any. Barry and Logan, they give it a new shove and off it went. So after that, I was like sliced bread, you know, anything went wrong with the car, with a loaded victor, Victor, Victor, so sort of thing in Russian, you know? So I was all right.

What were the Russians like to the German Civil War? Did they put up resistance that, you know, they did blow up any resistance. They just passed and they didn't stop. And thousands of them, these Russians, thousands of them, but all the people the Russians built and apparently one know didn't have any weapons at all. They picked up their weapons of the lads you got killed in front, you couldn't stop them. There's too many of them.

And they just went on and on and on, because I read an hour ago that we're going to catch a bird in from the South, but they were terrible. Not the bloke in charge apparently had a very bad reputation.

They're brutal. No, not to me they were, but they were very primitive, put it that way personally.

I mean, the way they treated me once, once I found out I could start their cause and I wasn't any menace, one of them gave me a balalaika, which didn't last very long. It's true. But I know now that I fed me, I was with them all the time, not nearly enough. They didn't get engaged in any battles because all the Germans runnerup in. If I wasn't, I would not be nutcases until we got to this river, I was him about six weeks and we got to this river and just before.

You got to remember, he was in Leipzig, we got to Leipzig and he was in Leipzig, that we had this little radio. Somebody had a radio because by that time I discovered some other blokes like English, French. And that's when Churchill is told about the war being over.

And you saw so many terrible things during the war. How have you managed to go through the rest of your life without letting that just drag you down?

Well, I've never. I mean, they dragged me down. What he's done is ruin the life of a lot of other people. Is that what it. I mean, it was some sort of a monster. A regional down there. But it turned me into a person who you could cry easily to go in and start a with people and things like that. And then the next day I'm wondering what happened. A general and I saw a person I had no respect for any authority whatsoever.

I've gone I've gone through life. And like a lot of people, when there is no. I. I did a round with well, with the first wife, Frieda. We had a robbery that would be something I had done and I ran out at about 11 o'clock riding. I walk down the embankment, I go out on the water bridge, and I'm looking over the side thinking about something, you know, on a few somebodies and on my shoulder without a second thought to be Ibraham around.

And I lady pushed him in a river over the parapet. And then I realized it was a copper. It was a policeman. And so put it back in Kuwait. And so said to himself, we recovered your spouse, you're going to send me today. Now, I said, That's right, boys. I got no idea what happened to you. So. I got my way down the road and go back. I thought I needed to move in the river.

I was quite powerful at the time. I could do things like that. I actually only ruined the life of my first wife. We were married for 22 years and. And then we got divorced, and that's I mean, a lot more than she's she's, you know, I don't think she realized what was wrong with me. And I wrote a book because of the book. I met this lady who was secretary of the Treasury and trust and fear that the man in charge of the Cathedral of Coventry Village was called.

Now, they wanted me to go out there and give it all on on February the 14th, whenever the memorial service for Dresden, Coventry Cathedral, because they attacked you never say so because of them. This is about, what, four years ago? Four years ago. And it goes up there and I said, well, go do that. I want you to be the pope in Asia and and just talk to these people about what it was like a Dresden.

And a cathedral full up to the brim, so goes out the probing, I'm looking around all these people go through what I'm going to say because you're at home just on that right away toward autobio. And then I thought, I've had enough now I've been told for about 20 minutes, I go through what I've been talking about. So then ogre's is definitely cooler than somebody actually clapping and also clapping. So I come down and then the bloke who's in charge, Brayshaw, whatever he called it, to have a love in what I call the love and everybody out again asset and everybody at old age.

I was an angel because they're not jobs there. And he was I would never gotten into the middle of this country. And there was this old girl. She's now Jewish lady. She was somebody she kept alive. I don't know how, but she was Jewish and she was about 90. And she comes out, she put her all around me. She got a lawyer and she's holding onto me. And all of a sudden I could feel somebody waiting for me.

And I thought, this woman. And it's something I've never felt before in my life. I never was. I said, what was wrong with going inside my mind? Sort a telepathic interchange. And there was a time before when when I was working at a point because I used to put protective coverage on I had me on business and I come home from Bridgewater and there's this place and what this cottage was, along with a thatched roof. I don't see this morning in this room was hanging out a window.

I don't know, I just I probably boy to come on and I went to bed. And I woke up three days later. And it's sorts of people around me, and that's where it habitué to shine on screaming, things like that. What they want to talk to you like was an upset by the. And then all of a sudden, you know, go over it from then on. And they brought this lady, Adrasta, so I'm completely free right now to this jury, but because I've got a name for it now, post-traumatic stress disorder here and nobody knew anything about that.

So, I mean, that's what that's what soldiers, spies all about, really, soldier boy is all about. Our belief after the war and. That's why I said that is this this audience of kids yesterday, I said to him, you see you see an old man. And he's actually no, nobody else. Are you getting married or something other for that person sitting in that condition? Put him in before you start criticizing him. Eventually, eventually, of course, you going to have it, but you never you never heard of it?

I don't think so. These guys have been to Afghanistan and places. You know, they'd be lucky in a way, because the. Their service has been short lived, so they haven't been at the point of the year of the year. And then, of course, they get injured during a helicopter ride around. And they might get killed then they know on that battlefield very long. It's still bad, it's still bad for them because they've been flown out there without any knowledge of what they think.

You know, I what I write books in about. They still got Kalashnikovs and still got the power to kill people, and it was as stupid as a lot of people think, no. But for you, you think it's harder from what you saw? I think we talked a bit about our generation. Don't you think it's just as hard for them as it was for us? I mean, the British army and then those when I was in the army, you joined the army for seven and five.

Seventy years really color, five years of reserve, and then by the time you got the seven years, you were probably stuck in India somewhere. So you done a year for the king. Ironically to the Kings, I was I to about eight or nine was more or less. I did it. So I all I for 12 years. And then they got good collaborators on number 21, finish up in the blank somewhere and that I finish up doing a commission is job on to of the army to days is different.

And then of course I think that the structure is something different. I don't know whether it is a meritocracy yet. The. I know said the people in charge of stability ran out of room somewhere down there. I don't that you never hear of a very major general coming Bennett's guy, Victor.

Thank you so much. I think we're going to we're going to end it there. It's getting dark out. So thank you very much, Juan.

Did you get free of Ivan, thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring force. But anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a quick favor, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Martinus. I know, but them's the rules.

Then we go farther up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. I'll sleep well. Looking for a new podcast to listen to. Here's what we love, courtesy of Akaash Recommits.

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