Sevan Matossian (00:01):
Hey, thanks for doing this. I know I switched this on you at the last minute. I just saw at the same time coffee pods and wads. That’s all right.
Ross Austen (00:12):
I’ve got something going on the computer. So if I look down, I thought I’d be finished by now. Obviously we weren’t going to be an hour, but hopefully it should be done in 10 minutes. So if I look down quickly, I’m trying to finish something.
Sevan Matossian (00:25):
Okay. And if I look down, down or to the left, someone sent me some porn and I’m quickly erasing it off my computer or at least saving it. Hey. Oh, where are you right now?
Ross Austen (00:38):
So I’m at minutes, so I split my time between London and Devon. So Devon’s over on the south coast of the UK near the beaches. So at a minute I’m in Devon.
Sevan Matossian (00:48):
Is Devon, is that home? Home? Is that where you keep all your, well,
Ross Austen (00:52):
I kind of split. I say I split my time between here and just outside London. So I’ve got a property here and a property there. So I literally spend 50% time here and 50% there. So I suppose you can call ’em both home.
Sevan Matossian (01:07):
How big is Devin Ross?
Ross Austen (01:11):
It’s a pretty big county. I dunno the population, but it’s right by the coast. So you’ve got all the locals that live here, but then you get a lot of the city goers that come down here for little summer vacations and that. Cause I’m only five minutes from the beach.
Sevan Matossian (01:28):
And how long did you say the drive is between Devon and London?
Ross Austen (01:31):
About three and a half hours.
Sevan Matossian (01:33):
Okay. Because I mean, London’s like a proper metropolis. I mean, I don’t know if it still is, but it was the economic center of the world for many years. I mean, I’m guessing it’s chaos compared to Devin.
Ross Austen (01:46):
Oh yeah, a hundred percent. It’s probably about 10 times as the size of Devon. Well not the size, but just with the infrastructure and stuff there. Yeah, it’s pretty hectic. It’s nice to be down here. It’s much quieter, much slower pace of life down here.
Sevan Matossian (02:02):
Let me ask you this, does Devon have an Apple store?
Ross Austen (02:04):
No.
Sevan Matossian (02:05):
No. Okay. Okay.
Ross Austen (02:07):
We only got a KFC about 10 years ago. That’s how
Sevan Matossian (02:09):
KFC,
Ross Austen (02:13):
That’s the kind of levels we’re talking about. You come down here if you want peace and quiet.
Sevan Matossian (02:17):
Okay. That’s what I always tell my people. They’re like, what’s your town? I’m like, we don’t have an Apple store.
Ross Austen (02:23):
Nah, London’s got everything if you want cut. I mean we only just about got internet down there. So yeah, it’s nice and quiet down there.
Sevan Matossian (02:34):
Did you grow up there as a kid?
Ross Austen (02:36):
No, this was where I was based when I joined the military, this is where I got posted and I was originally, I came from South London, so when I got posted down there and I was near the beaches and I saw how peaceful and quiet and how nice it was being down here, I ended up staying down here and buying a property down here. So I’ve always had that since I got posted from the military.
Sevan Matossian (03:00):
Is it a military town? We have these towns all over the country. There’s two things that will make a town in the United States will be if the military lands there, obviously jails a big jail or universities. If you put a university somewhere, those three things kind of can be their own economies. Is that what Devon is? Is it a military town?
Ross Austen (03:19):
Well, I wouldn’t class it as a military town. It is got a military base here, but it’s not what we would class in the UK as a military town for it to be classed. They call ’em garrisons over here. So for it to be classed as a military garrison, you need probably three or four different military units to be all based there at the same time. And then it becomes a massive military town and then you can call it a military town or garrison as we say over here.
Sevan Matossian (03:46):
So if the military left, the town wouldn’t go away?
Ross Austen (03:48):
No,
Sevan Matossian (03:49):
No. How old are you?
Ross Austen (03:51):
I’m 42.
Sevan Matossian (03:54):
And hey, why did you join the military?
Ross Austen (03:59):
I suppose I was a fit young lad at the time. I had cousins in the military and when I left school and left college and stuff like that, I struggled to find a job, to be honest. I wanted to go into the PT fitness industry and it was the same old cliche, you haven’t got any experience so we can’t give you a job. And I was like, well, how can I get experience unless you give me a job? And then I was kind of stuck, ended up working for my dad for a little bit. And then yeah, I thought, do you know what? I’m going to go and join the military. There’s lots of opportunities there. Travel the world, you can get more qualifications. And I was a fit young lad and I thought, why not?
Sevan Matossian (04:45):
And what year was it?
Ross Austen (04:47):
So I joined in 2000.
Sevan Matossian (04:51):
So I don’t know if it’s like this in your country, but that’s like we kind of have this moment, obviously nine 11, we say pre nine 11 or post nine 11 often. So it’s pre nine 11 before pre the Hornet. Yeah. Do you guys use that there kind of as a time when the hornet’s nest was stirred?
Ross Austen (05:08):
Yeah, definitely. I was due to go to Cyprus and then obviously when nine 11 happened, everything changed and then obviously we all got sent to different units to get ready for what was about to happen. So yeah, that kind of changed obviously the course probably of what was going to happen.
Sevan Matossian (05:28):
And when you entered the military, and I’m using sweeping generalizations, but in the United States I would characterize that there’s two kinds of people who kind of maybe entered the military. One’s who are, fuck, what am I going to do with my life? Or my dad’s been beating me at home, or I’m about to go to jail or, you know what I mean? There’s this group of kids that are looking for discipline and kind of reprieve to go somewhere and kind of surrender themselves and kind of get their shit together with discipline and money and the things that the military offers. And then there’s these other kids that maybe come from a lineage or they’ve had this dream to be kind of a fighter. If I were to put ’em in two big buckets, and if you think that’s unfair, please tell me. No, no, it’s okay. I’m guessing you were kind of in neither bucket though. It’s not like you were getting yourself in trouble, but not necessarily you were ready to go. You had some sort of romanticism of the military.
Ross Austen (06:32):
As I say, I had cousins at the time and that were in the military and I was just a very fit young lad and I wanted to do fitness. I wanted to do, as I say, I wanted to go into the fitness industry and at the time no one would give me a job. And the opportunities I saw within the military, you could join. Obviously there’s lots of different branches within the military, so depending on what branch you wanted to join, depending on what jobs were available. So at the time I was a fit young lad, I could join the Marines for example. I was initially going to join the Marines. But when you do all your basic training in the Marines and you do the commando course, you then don’t necessarily get to become a fighting soldier. You could get sent to the Marine Corps and be a chef. No, I didn’t join the military to be a chef. I wanted to G and see the action and do all of that.
Sevan Matossian (07:28):
You did want to see the action?
Ross Austen (07:29):
I did, yeah. I knew what I was signing up for. I’m joining the military at the end of the day and I know exactly what that was about. So I suppose part of me wanted to see a bit of action. I was a fit young lad initially. Then after looking at the Marines, I looked at the PT Corps and someone was like, because I thought initially I wanted to be a PTI and go into the fitness injuries. Maybe if I joined the PT Corps, I could obviously train the military soldiers. But then someone said to me, would you rather be doing it or teaching it? And I was like, actually I love fitness. And I was like, actually I’d rather be doing it. So I didn’t then join the PT course. I was looking and I’m in an R on which kind of regiment to join.
(08:14):
And then I had a cousin in the engineers in the royal engineers and he said, why don’t you join the Royal Engineers? Obviously there’s a standard of education that you need to requirement to get in, but once you get in, there’s so many options. You can go and do the commander course, you can go and work the Marines, you can go and do P company and the jumps and then go and work with the parachute regiment. You can be a diver, you can go and get lots of qualifications. So I was like, okay, that seems interesting. So I looked into the engineers and ended up joining the Royal Engineers. I went and did the commando course, I went and did my diving course and that and I pretty much did all the courses I wanted to and then ended up getting loads of different qualifications that I can use in City Street if I wanted to. And at the same time I then get to go and be a commander and get attached to the Marines and go and city action as well. So I got kind of the best of everything by joining the Royal Engineers.
Sevan Matossian (09:11):
When you say you were a fit lad, what were you doing?
Ross Austen (09:16):
So what as in before?
Sevan Matossian (09:18):
Yeah, what got you so fit? Were you playing sports or in the gym or,
Ross Austen (09:22):
Yeah. Well at the time I played a lot of football. As a kid growing up, I wanted to be a professional footballer, had multiple trials for different teams growing up, but never quite made it. But yeah, so I was a fit lad of cross country running. I just liked all sports really. I tried to play as much sports as I could and just be active. So boxing, a little bit of boxing as well. So yeah, I was just a fit young active lad. So yeah, so that just obviously helped me with going into the military.
Sevan Matossian (09:54):
So when you say footballer, you’re referencing what we call in the state soccer?
Ross Austen (09:58):
Yeah, what you call soccer. Yeah, we call it
Sevan Matossian (10:01):
You call it where it really is. Yeah, footballer makes sense. So you metabolic capacity was pretty incredible. You could run the medium distance as well, and you were crazy explosive in anything less than a mile you could run explosively for minutes at a time.
Ross Austen (10:20):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (10:20):
Yeah. Okay. And your body was adapted for that. It’s interesting. That’s the lineage that the great Miko Selo came from. We saw him turn that monster engine of his into just a gritty fucking unbelievable CrossFitter, right?
Ross Austen (10:37):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:38):
Yeah. Okay. So you do that and then you join and are your parents cool with you joining?
Ross Austen (10:46):
Yeah, my parents have always been supportive. They were like, if that’s what you want to do, then we’ll support you. So we had cousins and uncles that had been in the military and that. So yeah, they were just very supportive and supported whatever I wanted to do really.
Sevan Matossian (11:00):
And this group of royal engineers, I’m not familiar with the term, but they sound like SmartyAnts, like you put the word royal there and engineer and in the us that would make you smart and classy?
Ross Austen (11:12):
Yeah, well, I think it’s just heritage and that it’s obviously because our military is quite linked to the royal family and stuff, that’s a lot of heritage when it comes with the military and that over here. So I’m not a hundred percent sure why it’s called the Royal Engineers, but the engineers that I found it was a good core to join because like I say, you can do a bit of everything. You can go and support everybody. And obviously we had our own role ourself as combat engineers, but also that we then can go and support other regiments that necessarily can’t do our job, but we can do theirs, if you know what I mean. So it was quite a good regiment to join to be honest. As I say, you’ve got options and you’ve got choices to go and do what you wanted to do.
Sevan Matossian (11:55):
Generically speaking, when we think in the United States, we think of the Marines, we think of air and water and we think of Navy as the water and we think of the army as the guys on feet. And the Air Force is obviously the air and the Coast Guard or the dudes and maybe the support guys in the boats. Are the royal engineers, do they have a generalization of what they do? Yeah,
Ross Austen (12:14):
So engineers come under the army, but I was commando trained. I actually came and I got posted down here to Devon, which is a commando engineer unit based, it’s a Marine Corps base. So we actually got posted as a small regiment onto a marine base and obviously the Marines come under the Navy. So most of my career was with the commando engineers. So I’ve always been at a marine base. So we’ve always come under free commando brigade, which is part of the Navy effectively, even though I was actually Army because of my job and who I was attached to, we were I suppose part of the Navy really.
Sevan Matossian (12:57):
And then even more specifically as we drilled down than you did, you said you did commando training and diving training. Is commando training, are those units that get special tasks, is that kind of like our rangers or our seals or
Ross Austen (13:10):
Our Yeah, pretty much kind of similar this. So if you want to, obviously the Marines, the difference between the Marines and the Commandos. So apart from that, we just, obviously the commandos are the army, but basically the marine version, but within the army, so the army commandos, what are the original commandos? Before the Navy then made a separate unit, which then became the Marines. But yeah, we have to do a 12 week selection course that you have to pass to earn your green berry. Now that 12 week part is part of a Marine’s basic training. So when we go to do the commander course, we’re already trained soldiers because I’ve already done my training and I’m already part of the engineers and I’m choosing to want to go and do the commander course so I can then go and work with the Marines. So that 12 week phase that we do, which is just the commando part, we go into that as trained soldiers, whereas Marines do all of their training in, I think it’s like 52 weeks all in a one.
Sevan Matossian (14:16):
And sorry for all of this, but I’m just so curious. And a commando group is how many guys, is there a certain number of guys?
Ross Austen (14:24):
So my unit was quite small. We was a small independent squadron. So a squadron can be, you’d in one squadron you’d have up to three or four troops. In each troop you’d have about 30 guys. So we are probably about a hundred, roughly about a hundred men kind of size, which is very small. But that’s why then we were attached to the Marines. So then the Marines basically had a hundred combat that they could do what they pleased with. We’ve got all the different quals, we’ve got all the different training and we can support them however they need to use us.
Sevan Matossian (15:00):
Ross, when you would be deployed, could you be deployed as a commando with your group to let’s say, okay, hey, we have a cartel guy in Columbia, we need you to go get him. Or hey, we need you to, there’s a caravan traveling between Kabul and somewhere else, we need you to protect it. Did you have specific missions like that?
Ross Austen (15:21):
Yeah, you could. Anything really, depending on what the unit was tasked to do, it could be anything from go and meet an elder in a local town, speak to them, work out if we can provide ’em with some food and water or it could be completely the other end, like you say again and take out this leader and blah, blah, blah. The range of missions could be anything really. It all depend on who got tasked and then what group got attached to. So basically whatever group I was attached to, their missions then became my missions.
Sevan Matossian (15:53):
Gotcha. And you were deployed twice?
Ross Austen (15:59):
Yeah, so I did a tour of Iraq and then I did two tours of Afghanistan and it was on my last tour of Afghanistan, I got
Sevan Matossian (16:09):
Injured. And can you tell me about what year your first deployment was in Iraq and can you give me an idea of what you guys did there?
Ross Austen (16:17):
So 2003, and obviously it was looking for weapons of mass destruction.
Sevan Matossian (16:23):
Did you guys find them?
Ross Austen (16:25):
We didn’t find anything.
Sevan Matossian (16:26):
You didn’t find? That’s what I heard. That’s what I heard.
Ross Austen (16:30):
No, we didn’t find anything. So yeah, yeah, we were just, I think I was atar, which was one of the ports. So the unit we were attached to, we just had to take over the port and then guard that port and make sure nothing went in and out of it basically. So that was my first experience of Iraq.
Sevan Matossian (16:49):
You guys took over a port?
Ross Austen (16:51):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (16:53):
Wow. And was the port being held at the time?
Ross Austen (16:56):
Yeah, it was, yeah, we had to take it and then occupy it and then we literally stayed there and occupied it and we sunk all their ships and whatnot and then didn’t let anything enter or leave and that was our mission.
Sevan Matossian (17:09):
Wow, that’s intense. So when you guys get to the port, there’s guys there saying, fuck, you can’t have it. And you’re like, okay, well we’re just going to take it in the bat.
Ross Austen (17:19):
See about that
Sevan Matossian (17:20):
And a battle ensued.
Ross Austen (17:23):
Yeah, pretty much.
Sevan Matossian (17:24):
And did the UK do that on their own or were you partnered up with other countries?
Ross Austen (17:32):
No, we always partnered up with the Americans, so obviously, obviously got a longstanding relationship. So yeah, we always support obviously the Americans. If America hadn’t have gone into Iraq doubt, we probably would’ve gone in and was the same with Afghanistan. Obviously we supported the Americans and went in, but I have worked, we used to then bring in the Danish and sometimes the Dutch guys as well. So
Sevan Matossian (18:00):
Canadians?
Ross Austen (18:02):
Yeah, sometimes Canadians, yeah,
Sevan Matossian (18:05):
Because they have a pretty active group of guys too that work with the us, right? Yeah, they
Ross Austen (18:09):
Do. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (18:10):
It seems like it’s pretty low key. It’s not talked about, but whenever I talk to Canadian soldiers, it sounds like they’re pretty active.
Ross Austen (18:16):
Yeah, they’re pretty active. As I say, most of the time, if you worked with the Americans, you can nine times out of 10 be working with the Canadians as well if they all partner quite a lot.
Sevan Matossian (18:25):
And so when you get to this, what did you call it, a harbor, this base, this water base. Are there a lot of boats there?
Ross Austen (18:36):
Yeah, there were a couple of naval ships there that were unoccupied obviously after they had left. So we were tasked to sink ’em and make ’em not usable. So we’d go down search. And at the time I was a diver as well, so I was part of the dive team as well. So we had a few divers, divers in the water. There was some underwater mines that we had to clear and get rid of, and then we just had to sink the ships, so we’d put explosives on and just blow holes in the bottom of the ship so they’d sink so they couldn’t be used.
Sevan Matossian (19:07):
And you just watch ’em, you set the explosives, guys would stand ashore, someone in the cartoons pushes the thing down and
Ross Austen (19:15):
Pretty much, yeah, press a button and bang and then just watch it sink over the next few hours.
Sevan Matossian (19:19):
Wow. And so those boats are probably still there at the
Ross Austen (19:23):
Bottom? Oh yeah. They’re a hundred percent still there. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (19:26):
Wild. And I hope you guys did environmental surveys. So no fish, innocent fish.
Ross Austen (19:32):
Well actually that’s the best way to fish.
Sevan Matossian (19:35):
You guys were actually helping the environment. Those are probably amazing coral reefs now providing home and mating areas for loads of fish.
Ross Austen (19:43):
Hopefully. Yeah, haven’t been back. So I don’t know,
Sevan Matossian (19:46):
Have you ever seen that, those oil derricks that they’ll have out in the middle of the ocean
Ross Austen (19:51):
And
Sevan Matossian (19:51):
They’ll just turn into these incredible fucking breeding grounds for fish?
Ross Austen (19:54):
Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen, yeah,
Sevan Matossian (19:56):
Yeah, it’s pretty wild. And so you do that and then you come back and then you deploy again to Afghanistan and then you come back and then you deploy again to Afghanistan.
Ross Austen (20:12):
That’s right. Yeah. So I came back from Iraq, we had a little bit of downtime and then obviously Afghanistan off and then yeah, we deployed to Afghanistan at the time in Afghanistan that time IEDs weren’t really in theater, so it was just all firefighting, like close quarter battles and that’s getting up close and personal, which was quite a hectic tour. We lost quite a few, well my regimen personally, but the guys that we were attached to lost quite a few guys, but there was no IEDs in theater, so it would literally be going out on per chart, you’d get ambushed or you’d go and infiltrate a village that was occupied by the Taliban and obviously take that back and whatnot. So it was a completely different tour to the one I got injured on and then obviously finished that tour, then came back pretty quick.
(21:02):
Turnaround only was back in the country for probably about a year before we had to then deploy again and then deployed back to Afghanistan to a different part this time. And obviously IEDs were in theater and it was like literally every week people, soldiers were getting injured by IED, so you couldn’t leave your fob or your base, you can even get a hundred meters out the front gate before finding an ID and it’d stop and it just slowed everything down and became quite hard to do any of the operations because you knew if you had to get to point A, it’d probably take your ages to get there because you got a clearer route because you’d have known the Taliban of planted all sorts. So it just became a lot harder to do your job.
Sevan Matossian (21:45):
And when you say an IED, it’s everything from a landmine that’s just like your classic generic landmine that’s just something under the sand that you step onto like a kid’s teddy bear?
Ross Austen (22:00):
Yeah, it could be anything. So I mean Afghanistan’s riddled with mines from when Russia invaded, so there is thousands of thousands of old mines just left in the ground. They’re not even marked on a map, so you don’t even know that they’re there. And then, so yes, you’ve got all those to deal with and then basically obviously because a war going on, obviously there’s lots of shells and bombs get dropped and all they do is they used to just pick up these empty shells and then pack ’em with whatever they could find and put explosives in ’em and then rebury ’em back in the ground. And then, so most of the IEDs, obviously what it stands for is improvised explosive device. So it’s just a homemade bomb basically. So they would pick up all these shells that we’d basically found on them, we pack ’em, bury ’em in and give them back to us basically.
Sevan Matossian (22:51):
Are they basically just like a pressure plate? It’s like you step on the button?
Ross Austen (22:54):
Yeah, well different. So you had different types. So you had a pressure pad one, so basically with a pressure pad one you just need the smallest amount of metal contact and your body weight would trigger it, step on it, it’d touch, and then obviously detonate the device. Or the other one is it can be remote controlled, but with remote controlled they’d need line of sight, so they’d have to be within the area somewhere and nine times out of tenant what they found is if they were in the area, our sniper would find them. So they kind switched tactics a bit and left the remote controlled one for the sides of the roads and for vehicles instead because if you’ve got a long road you can be miles out of sight but still have sight on where you want to detonate it. So they left, they switched that of roadside bombs and using that for vehicle convoys and then use the pressure pad ones to try and get the soldiers out on foot patrol.
Sevan Matossian (23:53):
Before you had your experience with the one that hit you, had you seen any others go off in your previous deployment?
Ross Austen (24:03):
Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen a few go off. So on my tour actually about a week before I got injured, one of the lads trodden won and got injured and I had to casi vacuum help part of the Casi vac team get him back. And funny we have a bit of banter, but the last thing he said to me before I put him on the Chinook to take him out of there, we got him on there and he was like, oh, see you later. And was like, yeah, see you later. And then a week later I got injured and then flown back to the UK and I saw him in nostril. I was like, it’s your fault. You said, I see you later.
Sevan Matossian (24:41):
How long were you into the mission? How long had you been deployed before you got hit by the IED?
Ross Austen (24:48):
So I was November, so I’ve been out there since the beginning of September and then I got injured on the 19th of November. So I was quite early on
Sevan Matossian (24:57):
In that tour. Just roughly during that time were you doing, obviously in your first deployment to Iraq you had your target and then you captured it and then you stayed there. On these last two tours, were you coming in and out on a regular basis like night you had nightly missions?
Ross Austen (25:16):
Yeah, in and out we’d go and meet the elders and that speak to them and see if we can support the locals best we can. And then at the same time we were still trying to advance occupy ground and positions and that. So we were coming back and forth, back and forth and probably I’d say doing missions at least every couple of days. And then we actually decided to, when I got injured, so at the time we were sharing a FOB with American Special Forces and we wanted to move to only about a K up the road to a separate compound. So we had two locations, obviously the Americans could occupy that we could be there and we can communicate and just cover more ground. So we had done a of the compound that we wanted to take over and obviously the Taliban knew that what was happening, we’d been watching us and that.
(26:15):
And then on the day of going to move in and take over this compound, they’re just IEDs everywhere. And as we were getting closer to the compound, I say being an engineer, I deal in explosives. So one of my roles is explosive entry. So we were going to get into a compound and they had occupied it. So I knelt down, basically set a charge, was going to set a 32nd fuse to blow a hole in and then the Marines can get in and do what they need to do. And as I knelt down to set the charge, three rounds hit the wall above my head. So I knew I got contacted, so I had to make a split decision. Do I want to keep that 32nd charge and potentially get shot or do I can see you’ve got a picture up there that’s me triggering the IED or do I leg it?
(27:07):
I’d cleared a route up there, but I didn’t mark it. The plan was to set the charge and clear a separate route back. So I had to make a split decision. I knew roughly the line that I came up, I’m just going to take my chances because rounds weren’t getting close and they vis past your rear and that. So I just started running while I was getting shot at. And I got where that wall, you can see on that photo where that wall is where the guys are all stacked on the other side of that, I got about two meters from that wall and then it just went bang.
Sevan Matossian (27:35):
So these guys down here, there’s one guy on the left and there’s three guys you can see on the right. Those are your homies. That’s the boy.
Ross Austen (27:41):
Yeah, they were part of my section.
Sevan Matossian (27:44):
And you’re in that dust pile right there somewhere.
Ross Austen (27:46):
I’m up there, I’m in that it’s about 20 foot in that pile somewhere up there.
Sevan Matossian (27:50):
And you’re flying through the air somewhere up here?
Ross Austen (27:52):
Yeah, literally in the air. It was like slow motion. I triggered when I triggered the IED every went slow motion. It was strange. And then I kind of got flung up in the air and as I landed, it kind sped back up to sort of real time and obviously rounds were getting fired and shouting when all sorts was going on. And it just so happened my troop commander that was at the back of the convoy was filming because he was going to film actually my explosion that I was going to cause to get into the compound. But actually he caught me triggering the ID
Sevan Matossian (28:33):
Ross. So is that job that you had, is that what you call a breacher?
Ross Austen (28:37):
Yeah, basically breaching into a compound.
Sevan Matossian (28:40):
And so basically in a compound it’s a concrete wall around where several
Ross Austen (28:46):
Similar to that wall we can see on that picture. So just like a wall, most of the buildings in the village are just mud hut walls, like what you see there. So it was just a wall like that we were trying to get into. And obviously with experience roughly the thick of the wall and and how much explosives you need to put in to get a hole in there, obviously you don’t want to be messing about trying to get in there when there’s guys on the other side waiting for you. So you normally go overkill, putting enough in there to make sure you either at least put a hole in it or at least take half the wall down so the lads can get in and do what they need to do. But yeah, as I say, I got shot out and decided to make that split decision and just instead of clearing a separate route, I just decided to run and hope for the best. And as I say, I got a couple of meters from that wall and then it just went bang. But lucky that wall was there because if that wall hadn’t been there, I would probably kill three or five of those guys that you could see in the photo.
Sevan Matossian (29:45):
How did the wall protect them if they were on the side of the wall?
Ross Austen (29:48):
They were on the other side. On the other side.
Sevan Matossian (29:50):
Oh the
Ross Austen (29:52):
Hole. So where that wall is, there’s a hole that I’d already blown to get through and then I was moving on to the next compound to blow that hole.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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