July 12, 2025 • 15 mins
Former British army troop leader Owain Mulligan describes his time in the army as a hobby that got out of control.
A teacher by trade, Owain joined the Territorial Army as an outlet and something to do on the weekends.
Little did he know, the training would lead him to Iraq – not just as a soldier but leading a fighting troop.
Owain kept a diary during his seven months in Iraq – he’s now turned those writings into a book, The Accidental Soldier.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Former British Army troop leader Owen Mulligan describes his time
in the Army as a hobby that got out of control.
A teacher by trade, Owen joined the Territorial Army as
an outlet and something to do on the weekends. Little
did he know the training would lead him to Iraq,
not just as a soldier, but leading a fighting troop
IH and kept a diary during his seven months in Iraq.
He's now turned those writings into a book, The Accidental
(00:34):
Soldier and Owen Mulligan joins me now from the UK.
Good morning, Good morning, Okay, So why did you join
the Territorial Army.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's a good question, that's a really good question. Why
young men do lots of things. I think testosterone had
a lot to do with it. Kind of wanderlust had
a lot to do with it. Wanting to do something
a bit different from you know, just sitting in an
office or as I was kind of working as a teacher.
I think probably you know, impressing girls may have had
something to do with it. What it definitely wasn't was
(01:04):
it kind of a deep innate call for being in
the military, or a kind of deep sense of belief
in queen and country. So it complicated a set of reasons,
but non very noble ones, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So then, did you have any idea where this journey
might lead you?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Kind of? I think by that point I was in
the TA in kind of two thousand. I joined by
two thousand and three, so I think the writing was
on the wall in terms of, you know, it was
going to be an Iraq and Afghanistan kind of focused
ten years. I never really anticipated ending up doing the
job I did in Iraq, So being a troop leader
and kind of running a troop of professional soldiers, I
thought maybe there was an edge chance that I might
(01:42):
get deployed to a headquarters somewhere or some kind of
liaison job. I certainly never expected the streets of Basra
in kind of you know, two thousand and six, when
things were starting.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
To spin out a bit, you end up volunteering for
a seven month tour to Iraq. You're twenty three. I
was a little taken back at how little experience you
really needed to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I mean, the Army was running super hot at the time,
or the British Army was anyway, So we had We've
been in Iraq for a couple of years, We've just
gone into Helmand kind of looking for for a new adventure,
and so really it was a case of kind of
scraping the barrel. I think nowadays or almost at any
point since then, it probably wouldn't have been allowed because,
as you say, I was kind of very, very inexperienced.
(02:25):
I've done about a month at Sandhurst, a few kind
of weekend exercises, but yeah, they were they were they
were really hot, hurting for manpower at that point, so
I think I was the best of what was left.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So really was it a month's training actually kind.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Of formalized training at Sandhurst, yeah, which is kind of
where we where we train our officers. I had about
a month there, and then post kind of post call up,
I had about three months in Germany with my unit
doing kind of what they call pre deployment training, which
is actually, I mean it's excellent. The Army's very method
in terms of how they train you. So if they
think that you're going to get set on fire in
(03:00):
a riot in in Basra. They'll set you on fire
in a car park in Germany getting you ready for that.
If they think you'll get beaten up, they'll beat you
up in Germany. So you know, that training was excellent
and kind of really got my head into the game.
But before that, yeah, it's been about about a month
and then a few kind of weekends here and there.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You were made through troop leader. You're going to be
leading a fighting troop. What was your reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think, as I write in the book, my scoldron
leader was, you know, a big grin all over his
face when he told me I was going to be
a true leader, because it's what people join the army
to do. I was very aware of my lack of experience,
and my immediate reaction was to try not to be
sick all over myself through nerves. I was very lucky
in the sense that my soldiers, as lots of soldiers
are almost all of them, in fact, are really good
(03:43):
at kind of getting on board with the idea that
they will at some point have a really inexperienced officer.
Because the army is kind of like an apprenticeship. You know,
we need senior officers at some point they need to
kind of learn what they're doing. So neevitably there are
going to be cases where soldiers are central operations with
inexperienced officers who kind of learn on the job. And
the guys were great at kind of getting on board
(04:04):
with that. I think, you know, if I them, and
I've had to bite my tongue more than once when
I gave some of my more lunatic orders, but they
were unbelievable in terms of just letting me learn the
ropes as we went along, guiding me a lot of
them a lot more experienced than me, and just really
you know, making sure that I got my head into
the job as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You arrive in Bezra, what is it like heating out
as a camp for the first time?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So the first time you head out, you're absolutely terrified,
And the reason for that is that, you know, obviously,
all of your pre deployment training there's a limited amount
of time to kind of teach you everything you need
to know. So every time you go out of the
gate in training, it's carnage, Like people are getting blown up,
people are dying, you know, they're kind of squirting fake
blood all over you there's you know, vehicles on fire,
all that kind of stuff. So the first time you
(04:49):
go out of the gate for real in Iraq, you're
kind of almost assuming that's what it's going to be
like on the streets, and it takes you a few
patrols to realize that you know, actually, you know, you
might be in your your snatch landrover or your armored vehicle,
but around you kind of ninety nine point nine recurring
percent of people are just people trying to live their lives,
(05:10):
you know, go to the shops, take their kids to school,
get the car fixed, you know, you name it, just
those kind of domestic hum drum things. And it's not
necessarily a kind of end to end undermissing Blood path. Now,
occasionally things do go wrong and you encounter that kind
of you zero point one percent of the population who
were who don't want you there and making that very clear.
(05:30):
But yeah, there's a real difference in your kind of
initial sense of trepidation and what it's actually like when
you go on the ground for the first time, the.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
First bombing experience that you have the mortar attach overnight
at the camp, can you describe what that was like,
because it is that moment where it dawns on you
that people are trying to make a concerted effort to
kill you.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yes, yes, I mean to set the scene. We were
in a kind of porter cabin type building, about eighty
of us. We had been mortared, you know, a fair
bit before, so people had lob brockets and mortars at us,
but it had been fairly kind of ineffective and not
very accurate. This time, I think, you know, in retrospect,
we were probably being morted by professionals. So they dropped
(06:11):
about sixty rounds over the course of ten minutes in
and around this kind of kilometer square camp. You know,
one of those rounds kind of blew the corner off
a building next to ours, and it's like being kind
of trapped on the worst kind of theme park experience ever,
Like it's pitch black every ten seconds as an absolutely
enormous explosion, which you kind of feel almost rather than here.
(06:32):
You can hear, you know, people in other buildings kind
of screaming because they've been they've been wounded, and it's horrible,
and you know, part of I think why I found
it maybe a bit harder than perhaps some of my
peers certainly some of my soldiers is that I had,
you know, up to that point, and had an unbelievably
sheltered life, Like I think I say in the book,
like you know, everyone has just spent twenty years telling
(06:54):
me what a precious little flower I am and how
well I'm doing at school and university and all that
kind of stuff. So when someone actually really tries very
hard to kill you, you're just not used to the idea
that anyone would kind of take against you it were
you know, you think you're a reasonable person. You've gone
on with everyone you've ever met, and here's this personal
people dropping dropping quite a lot of waters on you.
So in amongst the kind of the prime war fear,
(07:16):
there's a real kind of I had a real reset
of my expectations of life in the universe that you know,
no one was going to stop it and say, actually,
you're a good lad, you don't deserve this, and they
were going to try and try and push it as
far as they could until I was killed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Do you ever get used to it?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You do get I mean I do that kind of
intensity of barrage. I think you would struggle, and I'm
sure people did in you know, world War two and
World War One, which kind of put what we did,
you know, really pales into comparison. I think you can
get used to you you build up a bit of
a shell where actually you kind of realize that, you know,
once that's happened, once you've been shot at, once you've
(07:54):
just seen you know, people rioting, that actually people do
want to hurt you, and it's not you know, necessarily
you can't be Michelle Pfeiffer in kind of dangerous minds
and just you know, talk to everyone and talk them
all around, like some people just do not want you
there and they able to hurt you. So you kind
of get used to that. I don't think you ever
really get used to being kind of properly morted or
properly rocketed. I think that's that's a bit much.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You talk about the fear and how you've never felt
fear like it, and I'm sure that one of those
moments that was very difficult for you was a very
tense time, was when you accidentally drove your troops into
the minefield. I hope bringing that up. No, it wasn't
a good day at the office.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It wasn't a good day at the office. It didn't
didn't make me look good to the boys or in
these my boss. Yeah, you know, I was taking a shortcut.
It's something the army tells you never ever to do.
Always follow the proven route. They drill into you. You
kind of wonder at the time, and why are they
really going at me about this kind of concept of
following the proven route and making sure you know where
you're going. And then eventually, you know, a few years later,
(08:59):
you find yourself reversing out of a minefield very slowly with
the pressure plate on an anti tank mind game between
wheels of your landrover, and you realize why they were
making such a big deal out of it. So, yeah,
you know, that's a kind of different fear. That is
one that's a bit more kind of icy cold as
opposed to kind of visceral. It's layered on with the
realization that you're the one who took the soldiers, or
(09:21):
you took your troop into the minefield. So if you
do hit a landmine, you know, not only have you
got some you know, not only have your soldiers been hurt,
but it's on you, which which adds an extra kind
of little free song to the to the experience, but yes,
you know, it taught me a lesson. I never did
that again, and that was the first and last mindfield
I've ever driven into.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You paint a picture of the timing everything from laughs
to boredom to tira to adrenaline pumping moments. Is that
the reality?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of it. And what's
been lovely is I've had quite a lot of feedback
from you know, people, other soldiers from different time periods,
but certainly people on that tour who have said that
they've not read books before that have kind of captured
how you go from hilarity to tragedy to you know,
sometimes hilarity again in the space of you know, a
(10:11):
few minutes, so you can be as you know, we
were at one point handing a convoy over to some Italians,
swapping kind of ration packs with them, you know, drinking
their kind of red wine that they get in their
ration packs. You know, the boys are chatting up one
of their medics, they're practicing Italian accents. It's all kind
of super convivial. You know, everyone's having a great time.
(10:32):
You kind of get back into your vehicle with a
smile on your face, and everyone's kind of bantering about
the experience, and then half an hour later, someone comes
over the radio and says, you know, those Italians you
just handed become way over to when half an hour
down the road they've been blown up and they've had
multiple casualties and one of them is now dead. And
that's just how operations are. You know. You can be
(10:53):
sitting in your tent watching Glee and someone sticks their
head in and tells you that a helicopter's gone down
in the middle of Bajra City, and you know you're
probably going in that kind of juxtaposition and going from
laughing out loud to you know, sometimes it's just the
nature I think of probably quite a lot of warfare,
but certainly that that's.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
All because that's the experience of reading the book as well.
I mean, I was laughing out loud. You're write beautifully
and you've got a great sense of humor, and I'd
be laughing out loud, and then I feel very uncomfortable
about it, because you know, in the nixt minute you're
not laughing out loud, you understand the gravity of what
you're talking about. But I did wonder whether at times
it did feel like you were in a black comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, I mean it does. It felt like, you know,
The Army in many senses, is a very long running
sitcom that just has some kind of you know, gut
punch moments and soldiers. You know, my soldiers used a
lot of black humor to cope with some of the
things that they kind of saw and went through, and
it really, you know, it's quite effective coping methods, particularly
(11:54):
when you're doing it with people who've shared that experience
with you, and it kind of you It's no substitute
I think for proper talking and therapy and you know,
other kinds of treatment when you get home if you've
been exposed really bad stuff. But in the moment, it
can really take the edge off some fairly fairly horrible moments.
So I think, you know, there's a reason why people
(12:14):
soldiers and I'm sure members of the emergency services, you know,
other kind of folks like that, do default to joking
about things that otherwise you would cry about.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Oh, when when you return to the UK from Bezra,
how different was the general public's perception of Iraq and
what was happening there compared to your experience.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I think people were I mean understandably not that kind
of switched on to it. I think it was pretty
clear by that point. You know, if it had ever
been a kind of a conflict or a war in
the national interest, it certainly wasn't. Now there were no wnds,
you know, it was a little bit unclear what it
was that we were still doing there. Afghanistan had kind
(12:53):
of kicked off in earnest, so the Parashuy regiment were
out there kind of winning medals and getting into loads
of firefights. So there was a kind of element of,
you know, just being a bit forgotten, but also not
being easy to kind of get too upset about that
because actually you kind of realize what relevance does a
lot of this have to people's lives. You kind of
wish that people knew a bit more about what soldiers
are willing to do for the country, even if not
(13:16):
in a cause that anyone can get particularly excited about.
I found it hard to get very kind of, you know,
wound up about people not caring, because I can kind
of understand why people wouldn't. I just wish maybe that
and part of the reason for writing the book that
people were a bit clued in to what we ask
these young men and women to do to this day
(13:37):
and actually now when probably more worthy immediate causes, like
for example, sitting in Eastern Europe acting as a kind
of forward to terran and what we asked them to
do for not very much in return.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You did another two tours to Afghanistan after Iraq. Did
you ever think that you would make a career out
of this?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
No? No, I was actually, and you can probably get
this from reading the book, not a very good soldier.
So it was kind of like a hobby that got
wildly out of hand and ended up serenading me on
three operational time. There's bits I loved about the army.
I loved the travel in Afghanistan. I was a linguist,
so I spent eighteen months on a long language course
and then got to use that in theater, worked with
(14:17):
and certainly met some Kiwis out there in Afghanistan, where
you guys are very present. But it was never going
to be a career. There's plenty of stuff about the
army that you know, structure wise and kind of it's
slightly pigheaded refusals to do sensible things sometimes that I
don't get on with. So notwithstanding the fun I had
on operations, it was never really a proper job for me.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So you thought, to yourself, management consultant, I'm going to
have a nice quiet suburb of in life with my family.
That's me.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
That is Yeah, there are moments, and you know a
lot of people who kind of write to me about
the book who've been on operations kind of talk about
how they'd never want to go back again ever now,
but they still miss the camaraderie, the kind of simplicity
of life. But there is a lot to be said
for being a management consultant with two children one on
the way and living in kind of North London in
(15:07):
terms of having an a quiet life. I don't regret
anything I did in the military or joining the military
in the first place, but I realized I was lucky
to get away with it and it's something that's good
to look back on. Maybe sometimes at the time was
less enjoyable to experience.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Owen Mulligan, thank you very much for your time, and
thank you for the book.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Thank you very much for talking to me.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was Owen Mulligan. The book was The Accidental Soldier.
It is in stores in all proceeds from the sales
in the UK and the Commonwealth go to the charity
war Child.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Former British Army troop leader Owen Mulligan describes his time
in the Army as a hobby that got out of control.
A teacher by trade, Owen joined the Territorial Army as
an outlet and something to do on the weekends. Little
did he know the training would lead him to Iraq,
not just as a soldier, but leading a fighting troop
IH and kept a diary during his seven months in Iraq.
He's now turned those writings into a book, The Accidental
(00:34):
Soldier and Owen Mulligan joins me now from the UK.
Good morning, Good morning, Okay, So why did you join
the Territorial Army.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's a good question, that's a really good question. Why
young men do lots of things. I think testosterone had
a lot to do with it. Kind of wanderlust had
a lot to do with it. Wanting to do something
a bit different from you know, just sitting in an
office or as I was kind of working as a teacher.
I think probably you know, impressing girls may have had
something to do with it. What it definitely wasn't was
(01:04):
it kind of a deep innate call for being in
the military, or a kind of deep sense of belief
in queen and country. So it complicated a set of reasons,
but non very noble ones, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So then, did you have any idea where this journey
might lead you?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Kind of? I think by that point I was in
the TA in kind of two thousand. I joined by
two thousand and three, so I think the writing was
on the wall in terms of, you know, it was
going to be an Iraq and Afghanistan kind of focused
ten years. I never really anticipated ending up doing the
job I did in Iraq, So being a troop leader
and kind of running a troop of professional soldiers, I
thought maybe there was an edge chance that I might
(01:42):
get deployed to a headquarters somewhere or some kind of
liaison job. I certainly never expected the streets of Basra
in kind of you know, two thousand and six, when
things were starting.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
To spin out a bit, you end up volunteering for
a seven month tour to Iraq. You're twenty three. I
was a little taken back at how little experience you
really needed to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I mean, the Army was running super hot at the time,
or the British Army was anyway, So we had We've
been in Iraq for a couple of years, We've just
gone into Helmand kind of looking for for a new adventure,
and so really it was a case of kind of
scraping the barrel. I think nowadays or almost at any
point since then, it probably wouldn't have been allowed because,
as you say, I was kind of very, very inexperienced.
(02:25):
I've done about a month at Sandhurst, a few kind
of weekend exercises, but yeah, they were they were they
were really hot, hurting for manpower at that point, so
I think I was the best of what was left.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So really was it a month's training actually kind.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Of formalized training at Sandhurst, yeah, which is kind of
where we where we train our officers. I had about
a month there, and then post kind of post call up,
I had about three months in Germany with my unit
doing kind of what they call pre deployment training, which
is actually, I mean it's excellent. The Army's very method
in terms of how they train you. So if they
think that you're going to get set on fire in
(03:00):
a riot in in Basra. They'll set you on fire
in a car park in Germany getting you ready for that.
If they think you'll get beaten up, they'll beat you
up in Germany. So you know, that training was excellent
and kind of really got my head into the game.
But before that, yeah, it's been about about a month
and then a few kind of weekends here and there.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You were made through troop leader. You're going to be
leading a fighting troop. What was your reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think, as I write in the book, my scoldron
leader was, you know, a big grin all over his
face when he told me I was going to be
a true leader, because it's what people join the army
to do. I was very aware of my lack of experience,
and my immediate reaction was to try not to be
sick all over myself through nerves. I was very lucky
in the sense that my soldiers, as lots of soldiers
are almost all of them, in fact, are really good
(03:43):
at kind of getting on board with the idea that
they will at some point have a really inexperienced officer.
Because the army is kind of like an apprenticeship. You know,
we need senior officers at some point they need to
kind of learn what they're doing. So neevitably there are
going to be cases where soldiers are central operations with
inexperienced officers who kind of learn on the job. And
the guys were great at kind of getting on board
(04:04):
with that. I think, you know, if I them, and
I've had to bite my tongue more than once when
I gave some of my more lunatic orders, but they
were unbelievable in terms of just letting me learn the
ropes as we went along, guiding me a lot of
them a lot more experienced than me, and just really
you know, making sure that I got my head into
the job as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You arrive in Bezra, what is it like heating out
as a camp for the first time?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So the first time you head out, you're absolutely terrified,
And the reason for that is that, you know, obviously,
all of your pre deployment training there's a limited amount
of time to kind of teach you everything you need
to know. So every time you go out of the
gate in training, it's carnage, Like people are getting blown up,
people are dying, you know, they're kind of squirting fake
blood all over you there's you know, vehicles on fire,
all that kind of stuff. So the first time you
(04:49):
go out of the gate for real in Iraq, you're
kind of almost assuming that's what it's going to be
like on the streets, and it takes you a few
patrols to realize that you know, actually, you know, you
might be in your your snatch landrover or your armored vehicle,
but around you kind of ninety nine point nine recurring
percent of people are just people trying to live their lives,
(05:10):
you know, go to the shops, take their kids to school,
get the car fixed, you know, you name it, just
those kind of domestic hum drum things. And it's not
necessarily a kind of end to end undermissing Blood path. Now,
occasionally things do go wrong and you encounter that kind
of you zero point one percent of the population who
were who don't want you there and making that very clear.
(05:30):
But yeah, there's a real difference in your kind of
initial sense of trepidation and what it's actually like when
you go on the ground for the first time, the.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
First bombing experience that you have the mortar attach overnight
at the camp, can you describe what that was like,
because it is that moment where it dawns on you
that people are trying to make a concerted effort to
kill you.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yes, yes, I mean to set the scene. We were
in a kind of porter cabin type building, about eighty
of us. We had been mortared, you know, a fair
bit before, so people had lob brockets and mortars at us,
but it had been fairly kind of ineffective and not
very accurate. This time, I think, you know, in retrospect,
we were probably being morted by professionals. So they dropped
(06:11):
about sixty rounds over the course of ten minutes in
and around this kind of kilometer square camp. You know,
one of those rounds kind of blew the corner off
a building next to ours, and it's like being kind
of trapped on the worst kind of theme park experience ever,
Like it's pitch black every ten seconds as an absolutely
enormous explosion, which you kind of feel almost rather than here.
(06:32):
You can hear, you know, people in other buildings kind
of screaming because they've been they've been wounded, and it's horrible,
and you know, part of I think why I found
it maybe a bit harder than perhaps some of my
peers certainly some of my soldiers is that I had,
you know, up to that point, and had an unbelievably
sheltered life, Like I think I say in the book,
like you know, everyone has just spent twenty years telling
(06:54):
me what a precious little flower I am and how
well I'm doing at school and university and all that
kind of stuff. So when someone actually really tries very
hard to kill you, you're just not used to the idea
that anyone would kind of take against you it were
you know, you think you're a reasonable person. You've gone
on with everyone you've ever met, and here's this personal
people dropping dropping quite a lot of waters on you.
So in amongst the kind of the prime war fear,
(07:16):
there's a real kind of I had a real reset
of my expectations of life in the universe that you know,
no one was going to stop it and say, actually,
you're a good lad, you don't deserve this, and they
were going to try and try and push it as
far as they could until I was killed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Do you ever get used to it?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You do get I mean I do that kind of
intensity of barrage. I think you would struggle, and I'm
sure people did in you know, world War two and
World War One, which kind of put what we did,
you know, really pales into comparison. I think you can
get used to you you build up a bit of
a shell where actually you kind of realize that, you know,
once that's happened, once you've been shot at, once you've
(07:54):
just seen you know, people rioting, that actually people do
want to hurt you, and it's not you know, necessarily
you can't be Michelle Pfeiffer in kind of dangerous minds
and just you know, talk to everyone and talk them
all around, like some people just do not want you
there and they able to hurt you. So you kind
of get used to that. I don't think you ever
really get used to being kind of properly morted or
properly rocketed. I think that's that's a bit much.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You talk about the fear and how you've never felt
fear like it, and I'm sure that one of those
moments that was very difficult for you was a very
tense time, was when you accidentally drove your troops into
the minefield. I hope bringing that up. No, it wasn't
a good day at the office.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It wasn't a good day at the office. It didn't
didn't make me look good to the boys or in
these my boss. Yeah, you know, I was taking a shortcut.
It's something the army tells you never ever to do.
Always follow the proven route. They drill into you. You
kind of wonder at the time, and why are they
really going at me about this kind of concept of
following the proven route and making sure you know where
you're going. And then eventually, you know, a few years later,
(08:59):
you find yourself reversing out of a minefield very slowly with
the pressure plate on an anti tank mind game between
wheels of your landrover, and you realize why they were
making such a big deal out of it. So, yeah,
you know, that's a kind of different fear. That is
one that's a bit more kind of icy cold as
opposed to kind of visceral. It's layered on with the
realization that you're the one who took the soldiers, or
(09:21):
you took your troop into the minefield. So if you
do hit a landmine, you know, not only have you
got some you know, not only have your soldiers been hurt,
but it's on you, which which adds an extra kind
of little free song to the to the experience, but yes,
you know, it taught me a lesson. I never did
that again, and that was the first and last mindfield
I've ever driven into.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You paint a picture of the timing everything from laughs
to boredom to tira to adrenaline pumping moments. Is that
the reality?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of it. And what's
been lovely is I've had quite a lot of feedback
from you know, people, other soldiers from different time periods,
but certainly people on that tour who have said that
they've not read books before that have kind of captured
how you go from hilarity to tragedy to you know,
sometimes hilarity again in the space of you know, a
(10:11):
few minutes, so you can be as you know, we
were at one point handing a convoy over to some Italians,
swapping kind of ration packs with them, you know, drinking
their kind of red wine that they get in their
ration packs. You know, the boys are chatting up one
of their medics, they're practicing Italian accents. It's all kind
of super convivial. You know, everyone's having a great time.
(10:32):
You kind of get back into your vehicle with a
smile on your face, and everyone's kind of bantering about
the experience, and then half an hour later, someone comes
over the radio and says, you know, those Italians you
just handed become way over to when half an hour
down the road they've been blown up and they've had
multiple casualties and one of them is now dead. And
that's just how operations are. You know. You can be
(10:53):
sitting in your tent watching Glee and someone sticks their
head in and tells you that a helicopter's gone down
in the middle of Bajra City, and you know you're
probably going in that kind of juxtaposition and going from
laughing out loud to you know, sometimes it's just the
nature I think of probably quite a lot of warfare,
but certainly that that's.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
All because that's the experience of reading the book as well.
I mean, I was laughing out loud. You're write beautifully
and you've got a great sense of humor, and I'd
be laughing out loud, and then I feel very uncomfortable
about it, because you know, in the nixt minute you're
not laughing out loud, you understand the gravity of what
you're talking about. But I did wonder whether at times
it did feel like you were in a black comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, I mean it does. It felt like, you know,
The Army in many senses, is a very long running
sitcom that just has some kind of you know, gut
punch moments and soldiers. You know, my soldiers used a
lot of black humor to cope with some of the
things that they kind of saw and went through, and
it really, you know, it's quite effective coping methods, particularly
(11:54):
when you're doing it with people who've shared that experience
with you, and it kind of you It's no substitute
I think for proper talking and therapy and you know,
other kinds of treatment when you get home if you've
been exposed really bad stuff. But in the moment, it
can really take the edge off some fairly fairly horrible moments.
So I think, you know, there's a reason why people
(12:14):
soldiers and I'm sure members of the emergency services, you know,
other kind of folks like that, do default to joking
about things that otherwise you would cry about.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Oh, when when you return to the UK from Bezra,
how different was the general public's perception of Iraq and
what was happening there compared to your experience.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I think people were I mean understandably not that kind
of switched on to it. I think it was pretty
clear by that point. You know, if it had ever
been a kind of a conflict or a war in
the national interest, it certainly wasn't. Now there were no wnds,
you know, it was a little bit unclear what it
was that we were still doing there. Afghanistan had kind
(12:53):
of kicked off in earnest, so the Parashuy regiment were
out there kind of winning medals and getting into loads
of firefights. So there was a kind of element of,
you know, just being a bit forgotten, but also not
being easy to kind of get too upset about that
because actually you kind of realize what relevance does a
lot of this have to people's lives. You kind of
wish that people knew a bit more about what soldiers
are willing to do for the country, even if not
(13:16):
in a cause that anyone can get particularly excited about.
I found it hard to get very kind of, you know,
wound up about people not caring, because I can kind
of understand why people wouldn't. I just wish maybe that
and part of the reason for writing the book that
people were a bit clued in to what we ask
these young men and women to do to this day
(13:37):
and actually now when probably more worthy immediate causes, like
for example, sitting in Eastern Europe acting as a kind
of forward to terran and what we asked them to
do for not very much in return.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You did another two tours to Afghanistan after Iraq. Did
you ever think that you would make a career out
of this?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
No? No, I was actually, and you can probably get
this from reading the book, not a very good soldier.
So it was kind of like a hobby that got
wildly out of hand and ended up serenading me on
three operational time. There's bits I loved about the army.
I loved the travel in Afghanistan. I was a linguist,
so I spent eighteen months on a long language course
and then got to use that in theater, worked with
(14:17):
and certainly met some Kiwis out there in Afghanistan, where
you guys are very present. But it was never going
to be a career. There's plenty of stuff about the
army that you know, structure wise and kind of it's
slightly pigheaded refusals to do sensible things sometimes that I
don't get on with. So notwithstanding the fun I had
on operations, it was never really a proper job for me.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So you thought, to yourself, management consultant, I'm going to
have a nice quiet suburb of in life with my family.
That's me.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
That is Yeah, there are moments, and you know a
lot of people who kind of write to me about
the book who've been on operations kind of talk about
how they'd never want to go back again ever now,
but they still miss the camaraderie, the kind of simplicity
of life. But there is a lot to be said
for being a management consultant with two children one on
the way and living in kind of North London in
(15:07):
terms of having an a quiet life. I don't regret
anything I did in the military or joining the military
in the first place, but I realized I was lucky
to get away with it and it's something that's good
to look back on. Maybe sometimes at the time was
less enjoyable to experience.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Owen Mulligan, thank you very much for your time, and
thank you for the book.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Thank you very much for talking to me.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was Owen Mulligan. The book was The Accidental Soldier.
It is in stores in all proceeds from the sales
in the UK and the Commonwealth go to the charity
war Child.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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