Caleb Beaver (00:00):
Do you have notes, Yvon?
Sevan Matossian (00:01):
I don’t. Okay. Not not. And I don’t have notes that I sent you. Is that a trip this morning or what?
Caleb Beaver (00:07):
Yeah, it’s kind of trippy. It’s freaking me out, man.
Sevan Matossian (00:10):
Uh, I’m just, uh, good morning everyone. Bam. We’re live. Greg, I can’t believe you’re actually on, to be honest.
Craig Harrison (00:19):
<laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (00:20):
Um, uh, the, the book is the Longest Kill. I listened to the audio version. Um, have you actually, have you listened to your own book?
Craig Harrison (00:30):
Um, no.
Sevan Matossian (00:32):
<laugh> the guy who, the guy who reads it. Is that you?
Craig Harrison (00:36):
No, it’s not. No, it’s certainly the, the, um, the publishers would hire to read the book.
Sevan Matossian (00:42):
Did you ever meet that dude? He is amazing.
Craig Harrison (00:45):
Yeah. He’s, I’ve heard he is got a good voice. Yeah. He does it really well,
Sevan Matossian (00:48):
Craig. He, and, and when you do, um, uh, when you talk in other char when you have other characters talk, he changes his voice. Yeah. Like he used different voices for different people. Like he’s got a voice for you. And then he is got, it’s, I wa it was one of those books that I was listening to and I’m like, and it’s, it’s a long book and I was very thankful for that. But then I was like, man, I kind of don’t want this to end. And I listened to it at regular speed. Most books I listened to, like at 1.25. This is an incredible story. I, I mean, I can’t even believe it’s real. It’s real, right?
Craig Harrison (01:16):
Yeah. It’s real. Everything’s real. Yeah. I try to keep as much realism is, you know, and, um, they kept it all in there. So I was looking for
Sevan Matossian (01:26):
Thatno. Another interesting thing is, in the last three days I’ve listened to a bunch of other podcasts. I was in the, uh, I drove from California to Arizona, which is about a 12 hour drive. And I listened to a bunch of other podcasts you were on. And, um, the, the book to me isn’t even about the longest kill. Like, I I, every time you mention it in the one of these podcasts, I’m like, I don’t, that part is just like a, like a, a spect
Craig Harrison (01:49):
Yeah. That, that was the whole reason of writing the book, you know? Cause I think the Americans did something on YouTube and they portrayed my shot and they got it totally wrong,
Sevan Matossian (01:59):
So. Oh, they did? Okay.
Craig Harrison (02:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So I was encouraged to, um, write the book, but I couldn’t do just about the shot because it’d be like a pamphlet. So I did it about my whole life, really.
Sevan Matossian (02:11):
Um, I’m gonna jump way ahead here. Is, is your mom still alive?
Craig Harrison (02:15):
Yes, she is. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (02:17):
Has she read the book?
Craig Harrison (02:18):
Um, she doesn’t talk to me no more. <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (02:21):
Okay. No,
Craig Harrison (02:23):
No. From, um, previous experiences, uh, that’s gone on in my life. So we’ve sort of lost contact with each other really. So,
Sevan Matossian (02:33):
Yeah, I, um, that part of the book in the beginning. So, just so you know, for those of you who haven’t read the book, and I know I’ve been telling you guys for weeks that we would get, Craig, you probably guys didn’t believe me, but here he is, bam. And, uh, the, it, it basically starts from his childhood up until the, you know, I don’t know, a few, a handful of years ago. And, uh, there’s no two parts of the book that are kind of the same. W can you, what, what, what was your childhood like? Were you born?
Craig Harrison (03:00):
Uh, Chapman, it’s, uh, near the cot towards, uh, down, uh, probably the east side, no, sorry, the west side of, uh, England, near Wales. Um, nice place. My childhood was alright, you know, it was good. My mum was very strict, uh, like a Victorian mum,
Sevan Matossian (03:19):
You know. Was your childhood good or was it the only childhood? You know, because I’ve, when I hear you say that in other podcasts, I’m like, dude, I don’t know if your childhood was good. I mean, isn’t like, those were hard. By the way, I’m not telling you guys this because, um, the guys on the show, you have to listen to this book, the Longest Kill. If there’s only just like one military biography journey you wanna learn about war and what it’s like to be a man, and just, this is the book you will, no one’s gonna be like, Hey, Savon, I wish you didn’t have me read that. Like, you are going to be so thankful you listened to this book. Uh, so what, what was it a good life? Was your mom, uh, affectionate? Was she like loving and No,
Craig Harrison (04:01):
She, she wasn’t affectionate. No, she wasn’t that sort of, uh, lady. Um, but she, um, she worked hard and she provided for me and my brother, ah, you know, we were single parent family. And in them days, you know, back in the eighties or seventies, it was quite hard to bring up two children, single parent. But she did well. And, um, yeah, I’m proud of her. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (04:24):
And, and do you wish you talked to her now?
Craig Harrison (04:26):
Um, I miss her. Yeah. I really miss her. Yeah. But, um, there’s too much water under the bridge, as I say, to um, Kindle a relationship back again. So, which is sad. You know,
Sevan Matossian (04:38):
I, in the book, I didn’t see you at, you never did anything to her. You, you weren’t a bad um, son. No. What’s your deal? What’s your deal with you? Why is she so angry at you? Sorry to just dig in. No,
Craig Harrison (04:49):
No, no worries. Uh, cause I got blown up in Afghan and um, I was brought back to England and into Birmingham. Um, it’s a military hospital where all the casualties go. And, um, she never visited me. And, and I wanted to know why she never came to visit me. And she never really gave me an answer. And then, um, I think one phone call I had with her, I was talking to her and at the end of the phone call I said, mom, I just wanna know why’d you never came to the hospital to see me? And she told me to fuck off and put the phone down. I never spoke to her since.
Sevan Matossian (05:24):
Wow. But the book, there’s, there’s a handful of those moments in the book, right? Like when you deploy, she’s not there when you come home. No. You have no one there to greet you like the other soldiers? No. Um, uh, you, you, when you would come home and, uh, you wouldn’t have a place to stay, like you’d be on leave and she Yeah. Yeah. Basically be like, Hey, get outta here. You’re not welcome at the house.
Craig Harrison (05:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, or she’ll make me pay rent, you know? And, um, it was horrendous. You should stay there the week. And she goes, well, you owe me 350 pound, which about $400. Yeah. You know, um, she would say that. And I thought, no, fuck it. Why do I need this? I’m a grown man. I might as well stay in camp. You know? And there were other lads in camp as well, who families disowned them or they didn’t have family. So we sort of became a close unit, you know, every time leave came. So Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:14):
Hey, you look great. Are you, are you training regularly? Are you still training?
Craig Harrison (06:18):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Every day I get up at, um, probably half past three in the morning, every day. Bar, weekends. And, um, yeah, I just train. Um, I spend about hour and a half, two hours in the gym, and then I go to work.
Sevan Matossian (06:32):
You’re working?
Craig Harrison (06:33):
Yeah. Yeah. I work nine hours a day,
Sevan Matossian (06:35):
You know, no shit. Yeah. Please tell me like, what are you doing? Please tell me like you work in like a nursery, like you plant trees or you write books or what, what? You’re an artist?
Craig Harrison (06:43):
No, no. I work in a, just a factory making parts for, uh, engines and all that. That’s all I do.
Sevan Matossian (06:50):
So, and well, no shit.
Craig Harrison (06:52):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:53):
Um, uh, does that keep you?
Craig Harrison (06:57):
I struggle. I have my bad days. Yeah. I have my good days. But yeah, I do struggle with my mental health doing that because you think the army, you’re moving a thousand miles an hour, you know, you’re doing this, you’re doing that, you’re doing that. And then you leave the army and everything just slows down to a crawl. So everything that you’ve experienced in the army rushes you and you can’t control your mental thoughts. And that’s how PTSD happens. And, you know, with mental health,
Sevan Matossian (07:24):
Hey, um, do you work out of necessity? Um, or, or, uh, just because you, you want to
Craig Harrison (07:30):
I, well, I used to work out a lot in the army, so it
Sevan Matossian (07:34):
Became, I, sorry, I don’t mean to work. I don’t mean work out. I mean, um, uh, uh, job, your vocation, your work. Okay. Like from my, yeah. Do you, do you do that job, the nine hour, uh, uh, day job from, because you
Craig Harrison (07:45):
Just, just Yeah. I couldn’t, I, I have to be doing something,
Sevan Matossian (07:49):
You know, but you need the money.
Craig Harrison (07:50):
No, not really.
Sevan Matossian (07:51):
Oh, okay. That makes me feel better. Dude, you’ve done your part. Yeah. You have done your part. Uh, it, it is absolutely nuts. Hey, is, is the book a bestseller?
Craig Harrison (08:02):
Um, it was, yeah. It was one of the top 10 bestsellers in England. Yeah. It did really well. And he’s still selling now? It’s still selling now. So, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:09):
God, that makes me so happy to hear. And, um, the, this, there’s, there’s a, a competition going on in my head for c for questions I want to ask you.
Craig Harrison (08:19):
No, no. Far away.
Sevan Matossian (08:20):
Settle down. I have to tell the voices in my head to settle down. They’re, they, everyone’s like, over here, over here, me ask them this. Um, has it been made into a movie or is there talk?
Craig Harrison (08:30):
I wish it would, you know, I, I’d love to break it into a movie. It’d be fantastic, you know, cuz you obviously America had the Malcolm Sniper or Chris Kyle. Yeah. You know, it’d be a nice one to have one in England as well, you know. So,
Sevan Matossian (08:44):
Um, the story is so, uh, uh, rich and layered and, and, um, and all encompassing the character development and how much people will get to know you is, I mean, it’s a fool. It’s not like, Hey, here’s Craig. Um, and he goes to the, uh, army and becomes a sniper. I mean, even how you became a sniper, just all the shit you had to deal with. Yeah, yeah. For all those years. And people basically treating you like you’re an idiot. Yeah. And all the hardship you had to do and then you still became one is absolutely nuts.
Craig Harrison (09:16):
Yeah. I just, I stuck by my guns, do you know what I mean? And that’s what I wanted to do. And cause I was a country boy anyway, you know, and I believed it. I loved the countryside, I believed in it. And, um, I just stuck by my guns and yeah, they finally gave in and gave me the opportunity to become a sniper.
Sevan Matossian (09:32):
How, how long were you in when that happened?
Craig Harrison (09:35):
Um, well, uh, bef oh, it must have been in a good 12, 13 years.
Sevan Matossian (09:41):
Yeah. So like, most guys would be retiring. You were starting a new
Craig Harrison (09:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (09:45):
A new life in the army.
Craig Harrison (09:46):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (09:49):
Um, do, do you have a daughter?
Craig Harrison (09:51):
Um, I’ve got two daughters,
Sevan Matossian (09:53):
Yeah. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah. How old are your daughters?
Craig Harrison (09:56):
Oh, one’s 35 and the other one’s 20, 26.
Sevan Matossian (10:00):
Oh, shit. Are are, are either of them living at home with you still?
Craig Harrison (10:03):
No, no. They’re both flew the coop, you know, a long time ago. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:07):
And how’s your relationship with them?
Craig Harrison (10:09):
Um, they’re good. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, they, um, they’re, they’re my stepdaughters. Um, but because my wife was married before and they were such a young age, I took ’em on and I look at them as my daughters now, you know? And, um, they, yeah, I love them. I love them both, and they’re doing really well for themselves, you know, and they, they think the same as me, you know, they worry about me as natural, but, um, you know. Yeah. It’s all good.
Sevan Matossian (10:36):
I, I wanna ask you about, um, you were in the army and there’s a scene in the book where you decide to leave and try to join the French Foreign Legion. Yeah,
Craig Harrison (10:46):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:47):
And I’m listening to this and that’s where my brain’s like, this cannot be real. I mean, what, what, what were you thinking? I mean, this feels like something that would happen like in 1865. Yeah,
Craig Harrison (10:58):
No, it, it was, well I joined the army, become a farrier, um, to put shoes on horses to him blacksmith. Okay. And that’s what I joined the army for, because there was no civilians taken on apprenticeships in England. So, well, well, I lived in Chatham, so I said join the Army and joined the household calvary, which did horses and become a farer, stay there, get a trade leave, you know, become self-employed. But it never worked out like that, you know? And my face didn’t fit. And plus me being dyslexic as well, you know, all the homework they’d given you the written work I did more illustration work more than written. And it wasn’t good enough for them. So my face didn’t fit. And I was coming up to 19 years old and I just thought, is this what it’s about? Is this it for me?
(11:48):
You know, just stuck here in Knightsbridge doing horses and this and that. And it was boring. It wasn’t exhilarating for me, um, because I had never ex Cause my regiment is split into two. So you have the ceremonial side, which protects the queen, and then you have the armored side, which do forward reconnaissance. Um, so I was stuck on the ceremonial side and I never experienced the, the reconnaissance side yet. So I thought, fuck it, I joined the fall legian. So I went AWOL and joined the fall Legian. Yeah. I, I wasn’t there long. Don’t believe me. I wasn’t there long because I was honest. I’m an honest person. And I said to them, I’m AWOL from the British Army. And because they looked into it and they knew I was able, years and years ago, they used to take murders, rapists, AWOL people from awol, but they don’t do it anymore. And so they sent me back, you know, I was there for about four weeks going through the training and they sent me back and, um, yeah, I, I got back to England and I thought, what do I do now? I said, I might as well hand myself back in cause AWOL from the British Army and went to my camp in Knightsbridge in London, handed myself in, and they put me in jail for 14 days. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (13:01):
Um, ca Caleb Caleb’s in the, uh, US Air Force. Caleb, have you ever known anyone in, um, in the military to go awol?
Caleb Beaver (13:08):
No, I can’t say that I’ve ever, no. But also for us, like AWOL is like four. Like you have to be gone for like months and nobody does that.
Sevan Matossian (13:18):
But, but, um, so dudes will just leave and be drunk and then like get a D U I and go to jail and you won’t see ’em for a month. And then they’ll come back and they’ll be like, where were you? And they’ll be like, I was in jail. Will you see that Caleb?
Caleb Beaver (13:30):
Mm. I can’t say that I’ve personally seen it, but I’ve heard stories about it. Yeah. They’re just like, I mean, they’re get in pretty serious trouble, but they’re not AWOL
Sevan Matossian (13:41):
Craig. This is kind of how I picture it. This is my naiveness. You’re basically at summer camp with 20 dudes that’s being in the military to me. And then one night in the middle of the night, you get a stick when you put like a little red handkerchief on it and you put like some underwear in there and you snuck out in the middle of the night.
Craig Harrison (13:56):
Yeah. Basically. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (13:57):
And you, and you crossed whatever that body of water is between the UK and Fr France.
Craig Harrison (14:02):
Yeah. The English channel. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (14:04):
And you found some dude and you walked into an office that said French Foreign Legion. You’re like, sign me up.
Craig Harrison (14:09):
It’s funny because you can go to any police station and say, I want to join the Foreign Legion. And they will, um, they say, okay, then wait here and you wait there in this police station until there’s enough people to, so the Foreign Legion will be bothered enough to pick you up so you can be there for weeks on end. I think I was there. Oh my God. I think I was there, uh, just over a week and I was in a bully suit. And I remember working, cuz I had to work for, to keep my keep at this police station. And I was sleeping in the cells waiting for the Fall Legion to pick me up. And I was working in an old folks home, an old people’s home. And I used to swoop the roads and then at the night we’d go back to the police station and just sleep there. They feed us crappy food for our keep. And then the same morning, do it again and do it again. And it turned out there was six other people that tipped up wanted to join the Farm Legion. And then eventually the Fall Legion came round with a big truck, picked us up and uh, took us off to the recruiting. Definitely.
Sevan Matossian (15:17):
And, and did you, how, how far did you make it? I guess in, in three or four weeks? Um, there, how far did you Uh, um,
Craig Harrison (15:23):
I did four weeks in the Legion itself. And I did a week or just over a week in at a bit with, um, uh, the, uh, in the police station itself.
Sevan Matossian (15:34):
Look at that. No vaccination required. Sounds like some good, those are some good dudes. <laugh> sign up. Yeah. I love those guys. Uh, and uh, and, and you started going through the training, like whatever that is, like they issued you to close and like you started training with the, with the French. Yeah.
Craig Harrison (15:50):
Well they take your clothes off, you give you a tracksuit, Uhhuh <affirmative>, they give you a, a mental test, they give you a physical test, they give you a written test, um, uh, yeah, fitness tests. And then, then you get interviewed and when you interviewed you gotta tell ’em the truth. And I told ’em the truth and they are, you can you, they give you a different identity. So they change your name, Uhhuh <affirmative>. And they usually give you a number like oi. So it’d be like, you are now un or you are now oi, you know, and that’d be your French or they give you a different name. And I was honest with them to begin with. And so some days I wish I fucking wasn’t, I would be still there, you know. But, uh, how, how you dunno where the life would’ve gone if I stayed there.
Sevan Matossian (16:34):
Yeah. Um, do you like your life when you look at it, you’re like, Hey, this is my trip on planet Earth.
Craig Harrison (16:39):
Um, I hate, I hate having PTs d Uhhuh, <affirmative>. I hate having images in my head for what I’ve achieved as a sniper. You know, people say that Snipering is a trade, it’s a good trade to have. It’s not, it’s a curse because it mentally destroys you for what you do. You know, you’re taking people’s lives and it’s individual lives that you are taking because you’ve got that scope on that rifle. Uhhuh <affirmative> you, your precision shooter. You’re not like got a gun, you’re just spraying everywhere. Right. You know, you, you actually taking a uh, somebody out and it affects you. Yeah. It does affect you. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (17:19):
You’re, you’re not, um, I think maybe in, in one of the interviews, uh, you said, um, it’s unnatural to kill.
Craig Harrison (17:27):
It is unnatural to kill for human beings. Unnatural. And I think if you enjoy it and you start enjoying it, there’s something wrong with you. You know? And basically I started looking at ’em as targets, not people. Cuz if you start looking at ’em at people, you start having feelings, you start having remorse and guilt and things like that. So if you go on a mission, just think of ’em as targets. Think of ’em as targets. You need to complete this mission, you know, and once that mission’s complete, that’s it. You need to forget what you’ve done and just come away from it and then wait for the next mission to come up. Come on. You.
Sevan Matossian (18:01):
There was something you said that was pretty poetic in the book in um, one of the first, it was before you were a sniper and um, I apologize, I can’t remember exactly what it is, but I think you referred to the snipers, you weren’t even really like soldiers. You were just tools. You weren’t, you weren’t people anymore. No. You were just a, you’re a weapon. You were p yeah, you’re a weapon.
Craig Harrison (18:22):
You were a weapon. So basically from, from the first world war, second world war, you know, going on for all the conflicts, soon as a conflict finishes like the second or first world war, you know, snipers were disbanded, you know, there’s no subpoena snipers. And then another conflict would come. They’d bring snipers in again snip. Cuz snipers can fuck your day up. You know, you dunno where they are, you dunno what they’re doing. And they can lay in weight up to 72 hours and waiting for that target to appear and they could fuck your life around. I remember being on exercise in Canada and massive exercises. It’s like 6 million pound this exercise, you know, it’s like 8 million y And um, these two snipers held the whole of the battle group up. Now battle group is over 3000 people in vehicles and everything. And these two snipers just fucked ’em, you know, and we wore these vests, so if the sniper rifle got shot, it would make the bang, but it would send out a laser to hit the vest and it would beep to, you know, to simulate you’ve been shot.
(19:28):
And they just decimated the whole battle group, you know, and it got to the point where the instructors had to go up to ’em and say, look, you know, give it a rest, you know, walk away because they’re not, yeah. Because they’re not, they’re not completely in the exercise. You are fucking the exerciser basically. But that’s a job of a sniper. You know, A job of a sniper is to gather lifetime information or the battlefield. So you are gathering as much information as possible because you are sneaky. You’re trying to creep in there. It’s not to shoot someone that’s your second mission, you know, and that’s what people need to remember of a sniper is, you know, you need to, eh, that’s a teex kit. It’s called Teex. Yeah. And it’ll only stop beeping if you lay down <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (20:18):
You know what I tripped on in the book too, is the characterization. And I, and I want to get back to the killing thing, but, um, uh, the taking live things. But, um, you were, you were kind of like an entrepreneur. What, what was the most guy you were in charge of? A lot of guys, but I was really surprised at, I don’t know if this is the right word, the autonomy you had.
Craig Harrison (20:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I’m, I’m a big lever that you work as a close group now. I had 16 guys in when, when I was in charge of 16 guys, um,
Sevan Matossian (20:49):
What’s that called? 16. Is that like a platoon? What is that? A
Craig Harrison (20:52):
Troop? It’s a troop. A troop, okay. Yeah. And then, um, I’m in charge of them. So basically if one of them gets injured, I feel it’s my fault because I’ve put ’em in that position to get injured. And it’s, it’s hard to explain, especially when you
Sevan Matossian (21:07):
Start blaming. Oh, I get it.
Craig Harrison (21:08):
Yeah, yeah. You start blaming yourself and stuff like that. Yeah. So I had 16 guys in, in charge of me and I wanted us to be a close unit, you know, and they didn’t call me sergeant or Sergeant Harrison. They call me Craig because I want that closeness. And if you have the closeness with your men, they will follow you to fucking hell and back cuz they believe in you, you know? But if you fuck ’em around and you’ve got no time for ’em, when you are in a firefight, they, they could leave you there <laugh>, you
Sevan Matossian (21:37):
Know?
Craig Harrison (21:38):
Right. And, but I trained my men so well, you know, fitness wise, mentally wise and everything that they were prepared to go on tour and die for each other, you know, and that’s what I wanted and I achieved that.
Sevan Matossian (21:53):
There would be times where I, in the book where you would basically, at least to me it seemed like this, um, someone would give you some assignment like, Hey, you need to watch this. It would be a pretty vague assignment and you would just basically walk off a hundred yards, um, camouflage yourself, uh, lie down, um, pissing shit in a bag. And then, and then when you saw a target or you saw what you called a a Dickie, those are the guys on the motorcycle. Dick a dicker. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, a dicker a guy on a motorcycle with a walkie-talkie who’s like basically a, a bad guy. He’s like their scout, right?
Craig Harrison (22:29):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (22:31):
And then you would, you would just extinguish the guy.
Craig Harrison (22:33):
Yeah. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (22:35):
And then there would be other times where there would literally just be targets everywhere and you would just be just picking guys off, which in the book, if I recall correctly, would just be for hours.
Craig Harrison (22:47):
Yeah. You’d be some missions. The mission of
Sevan Matossian (22:52):
No one’s even telling you, Hey, get that guy, get that guy, get that guy. You’re just out there. It’s almost like you’re like, you’re shooting rabbits in a field. They’re like, Hey, these rabbits are digg holes in our cow
Craig Harrison (23:01):
Got scope on your rifle. Yeah. You can p id them personally iden, you can personally identify that target as an insertion with a weapon. Uhhuh <affirmative>. So you’ve got all the, you’ve got the green light to take that target out, you know, and that’s one thing good about being a sniper is your scope. You know, you can p i d all these insertions doing what they’re doing. Yeah. And it’s, it’s hard sometimes, you know, that you, when you go on a mission, you have the high ground as a sniper and you are looking down and you are watching the patrol go in, but you are also watching the in insertions queue up for that attack as well. So if you engage them before they engage the patrol, you know, you, you, you, they, they fucking hated us out there. Absolutely hated us. That one shot. Soon as you hear that one fucking shot, they, they scatter, they go everywhere because they know there’s a sniper in the mountains,
Sevan Matossian (23:57):
You know? Yeah. Sounds, it sounds absolutely horrible to be on the, the other side of that. How do you, ID how do you ID them, so now I’m picturing you on maybe like a hill and there’s a compound. Yeah. And basically that’s where the bad guys are. Yeah. And not only are you picking guys off, but any movement you see, you also report back. Right? Yeah. You’re on like some channel
Craig Harrison (24:17):
Like, like I said, you know, the first option is to report back as possible, you know, but if you see insurgents with an R P G or carrying a gun and they’re about to attack, um, the patrol, you can take that target out. You know? But if I, if I was in a crowd and they’re all throwing stones at us, then suddenly threw a hand grenade at us. We, we haven’t got leg to stand on because you act to prove which one threw the hand grenade, which one through the stone, you know? So your hands are tied in some circumstances, but when it comes to weapon systems, a sniper is, you know, he holds his own on the ground.
Sevan Matossian (24:55):
Um, you, you don’t know how many people you killed, do you?
Craig Harrison (24:59):
I do, but I don’t wanna say it’s not, it’s not all about killing.
Sevan Matossian (25:02):
Right. You know,
Craig Harrison (25:02):
It’s not all about the kill.
Sevan Matossian (25:04):
I, I just feel like there was a point in the book where you had been out there for so many hours that I, if I recall correctly, you said you lost count.
Craig Harrison (25:11):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (25:12):
Yeah. So, so later on, somehow you figure out what it is after the fight’s over, you go down there and make sure you get the count.
Craig Harrison (25:18):
Yep. You’re not counting the body. You should try to get their weapons off them because you don’t want their weapons to go back into their hands again. You know?
Sevan Matossian (25:26):
Did, did you ever cry, um, on the battlefield, uh, after killing someone? No. No. You don’t let that sneak in. You’re, you’re not like, oh, that was someone’s son. You don’t let that sneak in.
Craig Harrison (25:37):
No, you can’t. Yeah. You, you can’t. Soon as you let that slip into you, you, you are, you are jeopardizing that mission. You know, you, you all squeeze that trigger to take the target out because you are, you got, you’re having second thoughts. You need to be positive, confident, and squeeze out trigger.
Sevan Matossian (25:57):
My knowledge of biology is pretty limited, but they’re the cells in your body that are called NK cells, they’re natural killer cells and they’re pretty big first line of defense. They can kill anything in, in your body. And if, um, and they don’t die themselves, they can remove cancers, they can kill covid, they can kill anything. Especially if they’re free to move around. If, if, you know, if you’re a healthy person, you’re not obese, these cells move around and, and they can uh, they can pretty much kill anything. And then, then we know that there’s other cells in people’s bodies that are like cancer cells, right?
Craig Harrison (26:28):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (26:30):
And it’s, it’s interesting from their perspective, the bad guy’s perspective, you’re a cancer cell.
Craig Harrison (26:38):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (26:39):
But from your team, you’re an NK cell, you’re a natural killer cell. You, your job is to is to, is to protect the body from, uh, any, any diseases as a whole. Exactly.
Craig Harrison (26:50):
You’re that main, that troop, you’re that main protection,
Sevan Matossian (26:53):
You know? Yeah. It’s, it’s the first. And what’s funny is, is people don’t ever, um, little off subject here, but the pe a lot of people don’t even view, especially modern society with all the nonsense around covid. They don’t even view NK cells as part of the immune system, even though they’re the first line of defense.
Craig Harrison (27:08):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (27:12):
When, um, did, did you ever get in trouble for, for killing someone? Did anyone ever talk to you? No. No,
Craig Harrison (27:18):
No.
Sevan Matossian (27:20):
And, and that, that’s, uh, that, that’s a big deal, right? Did everyone know, I got the impression that um, you were very well respected amongst your peers.
Craig Harrison (27:28):
Yeah, I, yeah, I was. Yeah. Yeah. They, I’m just, I dunno, my wife says I’m a likable guy. I’ve
Sevan Matossian (27:35):
Gotten a You’re a very likable guy. Yes.
Craig Harrison (27:37):
An inta. Was it a, an indi um, indictive personality. So people are drawn to me, you know, and they like being in my company. You and I enjoy it, you know, I like being in people’s company.
Sevan Matossian (27:49):
You, you’re, how tall are you?
Craig Harrison (27:51):
Six four. Six or four.
Sevan Matossian (27:53):
And, and do you know how much you weigh in pounds? Or maybe Caleb can do the conversion. What
Craig Harrison (27:58):
I, I’m 19 stone, so I don’t wanna saying
Sevan Matossian (28:02):
What’s it, what’s it, 19 stone. That sounds big. And and how long have you been married?
Craig Harrison (28:09):
Uh, 19 years.
Sevan Matossian (28:11):
Wow. That’s crazy. And how long have you known her?
Craig Harrison (28:14):
Uh, 21 years.
Sevan Matossian (28:17):
And, and you serve for 23 years?
Craig Harrison (28:20):
23 years. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (28:21):
Holy shit. You’re huge
Craig Harrison (28:23):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (28:25):
Wow. Um, when you work out, uh, what, what do you do? What are your, what are your, some of your movements? Is it just traditional working out? Like Yeah,
Craig Harrison (28:32):
I keep, I keep it old school, you know, I’m not into this CrossFit or anything. I, cuz I just had two hip replacements. Okay. I’ve got two false hips. So there’s, I’m limited to movement that I can do, but I just, I’ll keep old school and just slam the weights around, you know, and I enjoy it.
Sevan Matossian (28:46):
Pullups?
Craig Harrison (28:48):
Yeah. I could do pullups. Yeah. Chin-ups, pullups, sit-ups, everything.
Sevan Matossian (28:52):
Pushups.
Craig Harrison (28:53):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (28:54):
Any squatting? Do you do any squatting?
Craig Harrison (28:55):
I, I can do but I’m limited how deep I can go on my squat due to my hip. Cause my hip will pop out, you know?
Sevan Matossian (29:02):
And, and and what about running? Do you run anymore?
Craig Harrison (29:04):
No. No. I want to, this year I’ll start running, I think. Let my hips settle down, you know, and then start doing a bit of jogging. Cause I miss jogging. I miss it,
Sevan Matossian (29:14):
You know. Um, how about, um, uh, shooting? Do you ever do any shooting?
Craig Harrison (29:18):
I used to. I used to a lot of shooting, but, um, it’s funny, England’s very tight on it. If you got mental health issues or p s d, they will not give you a gun license, you know? And um, so that’s it. I don’t, I don’t shoot anymore.
Sevan Matossian (29:32):
Did you ever think about leaving the country and coming to the United States?
Craig Harrison (29:35):
I lived in the United States for three years.
Sevan Matossian (29:37):
What, what years were those?
Craig Harrison (29:38):
Um, 2015, 1617 to 2018. Oh. What were you doing there? Um, weaponry, uh, teaching, um, snipers how to shoot long range down in Quantico. Oh wow. Wow. Building sniper rifles, stuff like that.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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