What motivated you to join the
Royal Marines in the first place?
When I was about 15yrs old
& approaching the end of my compulsory education I had a sudden realisation
that once I had taken my GCSE's & the exams were over that I had a
huge choice to make, that choice was to either continue my schooling with
further education or go out into the big bad world & start earning a living.
At that point I was pretty
much done with school, not because I didn't enjoy it or I wasn't any
good at it (I got 9 GCSE's A-C & 1 D) but because I wanted to be out there
earning & gaining an education in life. Now the problem that I had was that
I really didn't know what it was that I wanted to do, I knew that I didn't want
to be in a suit working a 9-5 but I wasn't really sure what all of the wider
options were. After lots of thought, research & seeking advice from
others eventually I narrowed my options down to the Fire Brigade, the Police or
the Army.
As a 15yr old I really had no
idea just how much the Fire Brigade actually do & assumed that all they did
was put out fires (I now know much differently) & back then that didn’t
really appeal to me and so I scratched that off my list.
Joining the Police didn’t
materialise either as I thought that maybe that could be something I’d look at
when I was a bit older & had a bit more life experience & so in the end
I decided to join the Army. So one day I went down to the careers center, spoke
to the guy in charge & came home with all of the relevant paperwork. Once
my parents found out my plan my Dad took me to see an Uncle of mine who
unbeknown to me had been a Captain in the Royal Marines. He talked to me about
the differences between the Army & the Royal Marines & told me a little
bit about his career, after that I went back to the careers centre and spoke
with the man in charge of recruiting for the Corps. I sat down with him &
had a chat, watched the standard recruiting video & that was the moment
that I made my decision that I wanted to become a Royal Marine’s Commando. What
appealed to me was that these guys were so flexible & could deploy to any
environment in the world, arctic, desert, jungle, woodland & they could do
it by land, sea or air, it seemed like the complete package & I knew that
by joining it was going to make me grow enormously as an individual. I also did
a lot of research & found out just how hard the training was & so I
thought to myself “might as well go all in & push myself to see if I have
what it takes”
What kept you going at
Lympstone (Commando Training Centre Royal Marines)?
I think what kept me going
through my training initially was my ego & pride. I was only 17 at the time
& one of the youngest in the troop & so I felt like I had something to
prove, it also made me sick to my stomach the thought of quitting because it
was too hard or being kicked out because I wasn’t good enough.
As the weeks went by I watched
people quit & get kicked out & I imagined how bad they would feel being
on that train on the way back home & having to face their friends &
family & tell them that they didn’t make the grade, I couldn’t handle the
thought of that being me & so I used that to push me on through the tough
times. Even if we were doing things like speed marches, yomps or any other kind
of physical test as hard as it was & as much as I wanted to quit (even at
times throwing up as I was running) I couldn’t bare the thought of getting back
trooped & having to go through that pain again in two weeks time with
another troop. It would feel like all of the pain I was going through was for
nothing & I remember always thinking to myself “well I’m already in pain,
it already hurts so I might as well get a reward from it” & so I continued
to push.
Of course there’s also the
rest of the lads that are around you. Everyone has their strengths &
everyone has their weaknesses & when a member of the troop is struggling
the rest of the lads rally around to help him through & then later down the
line he usually repays the favor, that’s how the military works.
There was of course also the
thought of becoming a fully trained Royal Marines Commando by the age of 18!
That really spurred me on. I remember thinking how cool would it be not only to
have passed the longest & hardest regular forces infantry training in the
world, but to have done it by 18 would have made me a stud! (Well in my mind
anyway)
What motivated you after the
success of getting your green beret?
After I got my Green Lid what
motivated me was standards. I had an absolutely incredible training team when I
went through Lympstone and every single one of them always held themselves to
the highest professional standards at all times, they were men that I respected
& looked up to & men that I wanted to be like.
There was also pride. Training
to become a Royal Marine is world renowned for its difficulty & so when
people see that Green Lid or those Commando flashes or that Globe & Laurel
tattoo they know what you’ve been through & what kind of man you are. Now I
don’t necessarily mean a tough guy/steely eyed dealer of death etc… but the
kind of man that holds himself to a high standard & pushes himself to be
better & who never quits & always finds a way around things, that’s
what I wanted people to see when they looked at me & that motivated me even
more to be all that I could be. I also had visions one day of being on a
training team myself & having other young, raw recruits look up to me the
way I looked up to my training team.
How you felt after you got
injured?
After I got injured I felt the
same way I guess most people felt. I knew deep down that my career was over
& I had no idea what I was going to be able to do to support my family. I
thought my days of being physically fit & able to train were over (boy was
I wrong!), I knew my days as a Thai Boxer were over which was hard to take
& I really had no idea what the future held.
The early days during my
recovery were turbulent & like most people I’d have good days & I’d
have bad days. Some days I felt suicidal like everything I had ever worked hard
for had been taken away from me & I’d have to start again from scratch to
rebuild my life but then I’d think “OK well I’m 24yrs old so there’s plenty of
time to rebuild.”
It was tough trying to figure
everything out & it was an emotional roller-coaster for everyone that was
involved but there was so much help & support on hand that it helped me
& everyone around me to focus on the positives & the little wins &
get through the hard times.
What inspired you to
keep going with your rehabilitation?
To keep me going through my
rehab & to keep me moving forward I had a mindset shift & started to
look at things differently & tried to pull all of the positives out of my
situation. I started to look at my situation as a challenge just like when I
was a 17yr old going through training with the odds stacked against me except
now I was the UK’s first triple amputee from Afghanistan with no path to follow
& I just thought “well if I can get through training I can get through
this”. Again pride played a huge part in my recovery
If you were to change the way
the Military trains its personnel, how would you change it?
I’m not sure to be honest its
hard to say as the training needs to be brutal, it needs to push you mentally
& physically to your breaking point because when you’re in a combat zone
you need to know you have what it takes when the lead wasps start flying in
your direction.
I think after training it
would be really useful to have mentors/coaches available to help guide people
through their careers as when you’re a young man/woman it can all be a bit
overwhelming & sometimes people aren’t always aware of what is available to
them, I know I certainly wasn’t.
The biggest change I’d like to
see is more support during the final 12 months of people leaving the services.
This may have changed now but I remember situations where friends had put in
there notice to leave & during their final 12 months they were sent out on
3-6 month exercises on the other side of the world rather then focusing on
things like re-training, re-settling their families & preparing themselves
for civvy street.
How do you motivate yourself
and what lesson can we learn from your example.
I motivate myself by given
myself mentors & role models to aspire to be like & by constantly
setting myself goals in all of the areas of my life which are important to me.
The only advice I can give is
to not get stagnant & to pro-actively keep moving forward & setting
yourself goals not matter how unobtainable they may seem or what anyone else
thinks of them. You have to make a choice to focus on the things you want in
life, cut out the drama & things that aren’t important & keep heading
towards what it is that you do want.
Mark Ormrod MPSA
Motivational Speaker
Director: Mark Ormrod Ltd
