The next morning we got mortared for the first time. We were talking outside having a ciggy. You weren’t allowed out without your body armour. We were thinking: well why? Nothing happened last night. And then you just heard boom, boom, boom in the distance. And we were looking at each other, and then the alarms go off weeeeeeeeeearrrowwwww! And as they coming closer you hear, at first you just hear, whistles. And then as they come closer it’s zzzzzzzzzz boooomp!
Greenjacket Lee, 2018
This interview was excerpted in the book HIMSELF IN EXILE to give a point-of-view from another conflict, outside Northern Ireland. Here, Greenjacket Lee gives his account of the 2005 Iraq War.
Philip Davenport:
I’m assuming you were quite a young soldier?
Greenjacket Lee:
18, I was 18.
P
What year was it, and how did you arrive?
L
It was the 23rd of March 2005, I went to Catterick to start me basic training. First few weeks were… all the things… then you find out about yourself, they strip you back, do you know what I mean? Break you down to nothing and then you grow, sort of thing. But as the weeks went on I really got into it, me. Really enjoyed it, all the learning and stuff. Passed out with all me family present in September 2005.
P
Were they pleased that you’d gone in?
L
Yeah they were happy mate. Because I was on a path to destruction a little bit, I’d started you know drugs and stuff like that. It was all over a relationship, why I joined the army. I’d literally split up with a girlfriend and wanted to get away. So I went in the army.
P
So it’s like a get-out clause? OK.
L
But when I got there I found it suited me and I enjoyed it. And then we got posted to Iraq, in 2006. October 2006 til May 2007.
When we got posted there, I always remember the day we drove, the day we got to Iraq, was the day they sentenced Saddam to be hung. So the city was in uproar anyway. His friend, as they say, Makta al Sadda, the leader of the militia had declared war on the Greenjackets. He had declared full war on our battalion. And then we went to a place called Shiba Log Base, where you do your two weeks getting used to the weather and stuff like that.
On the day we were leaving to drive into Basra Palace, we had to go to secret location where we put our armour on all our wagons because it was so… it was getting so bad out there. As we were going, we heard someone screaming, “Medic! Medic!” And when we looked, one of the lads had emptied out his weapon and shot two of our friends in the back of the wagon. Yeah, yeah, it was it was bad mate. And that was as we were about to leave, into Basra. And it was like the writing was on the wall from that very moment. The writing for how that tour was set — was at that moment.
All of us had never been to war before, we never experienced anything. Then to see two of our friends on stretchers…
One was screaming, so we knew he was okay. A, it went through his knees. And H — a round had lodged near his heart. He was completely gone, he was white, and you knew he was in a bad way. Do you know what I mean? If someone gets hit, you want them screaming. You want them loud, screaming. It’s when they’re not making any noise… So the writing was on the wall before we even got there.
P
So you were then driving in the Bulldogs into Basra?
L
Yeah, when we left, it was only meant to be an hour’s drive. It took us 4 1/2 hours, 4 1/2 hours. One of the wagons broke down. But it was just like the feeling of… it’s weird, you’re putting a smile on your face, you’re laughing like one of the lads and that, but inside you’re dying. You just wanna go home. You’ve left everything you know and you’re like: what the fuck am I doing here? Just wanna go home.
We drove over the big bridge and we got into Basra safely. No attempts on us or anything. And then we got allocated our room and stuff. There was like 40 of us in one room, B Company I was in. We got there – I’d say safely but, two men down. A bit of a weird night, to be honest, seeing where you are living. There is your bed space, next to each other. And it was like: fucking hell is this it for six months? Is this me life, is this what it is? Some people loved it, and I acted like I loved it, but deep down in I was: I just wanna fuckin go home. So that was getting in the Palace.
P
Where were you stationed? In the actual Palace?
L
Basra Palace. Yeah, Saddam’s Palace, we was upstairs, there was a cookhouse underneath. We were upstairs, in the top left room like. All B Company was on the one landing. When you see Saddam’s Palace you realise just who that man was. When you pulled up to his palace you realised who he was.
The next morning we got mortared for the first time. We were talking outside having a ciggy. You weren’t allowed out without your body armour. We were thinking: well why? Nothing happened last night. And then you just heard boom, boom, boom in the distance. And we were looking at each other, and then the alarms go off weeeeeeeeeearrrowwwww! And as they coming closer you hear, at first you just hear, whistles. And then as they come closer it’s zzzzzzzzzz boooomp! Do you know what I mean, the mortars coming in and that?
As the weeks go on, as that goes off, you just sit down and have a laugh and a joke. It’s weird how you get used to nearly getting blown up. It becomes just second nature.
P
Very surreal. You’re watching the thing that could kill you coming in, but you just get used to it like you get used to anything.
L
It’s like you’re on holiday, you’re just going out having a laugh and a joke. It’s nuts.
P
When you’re a young guy, you tend to think you’re invincible.
L
At first, then when you got there you realised what you were into. Our first contact was at AK. And it was relentless, they were just on us, we were pinned down. There was rounds going off. Someone got shot in the face, our Sergeant Major put a strap around him, off his weapon. Took it off, slinged it round him and was holding his face on. We were just like what the fuck’s going on? Rounds just going everywhere. But then we sort of had this little swagger about us. Then Five Platoon got nicknamed the Fighting 5. The SAS came out there because of how brutal the fighting was. We had to go arrest people at night time, we were doing things called Strike Ops, going through doors early hours in the morning. But we were working with the SAS, because five platoon had excelled. We’d done well, we were the fighting five, we were always the first ones in on Strike Ops or whatever. It was pretty nuts like, to be honest.
Then it become like… You just had this battle face on you then. From all that self pity and wanting to go home had gone, you’d realised why you were there. And you were there just to deal with it. It was weird, weird how your body changes.
P
What is a battle face?
L
It’s a face on you, like a stone-cold face. Do you want me to show you on Google? There’s a picture of me on Google.
P
Yeah lets do that, come on.
L
Do you wanna see my pictures of Iraq? Here you go, I’ll show you some pictures of Iraq. (Typing into computer, onto Facebook.) There’s something for you to read, I’ll find it for you now. There is my little lad’s flowers, for his grave. This was me mate, who killed himself the other week. Right, it’s one of these here pictures now… That was me in training. Here’s the pictures.
P
Is that 2006? How many people are there?
L
That’s just our Section, that’s twelve. That’s a battle face. There’s a look on his face, there’s a look on everybody’s face. Except for him, he is an officer. You look in everyone’s face, there is a certain look. Ready to go to war. Up against the Bulldog … (New photo, Lee in a scratched, battered, bullet-marked armoured vehicle, in the sunshine.) If you look here now, this picture, there is me. Look at all the holes, look at all the cracks. That’s the visor to protect the commander, to protect them. Here’s me. The only place I can get hit is the head. I’ve cheated death a few times.
P
This is a very bullet-pocked vehicle. You’ve been shot at a lot of times, haven’t you?
L
Yeah, a hell of a lot of times… There is ones of us going into buildings and stuff. Loads on here. (New photo, soldiers outside blitzed building.) That’s us going into a building, that was one of the biggest battles in Basra, one of the biggest battles ever. We killed over 40 militia and took no casualties. That’s Five Platoon waiting to go into the building. The Fighting Five.
P
Go back, that’s quite a picture you’ve just flown past, now tell me about that day.
L
It was the moment leading up to it. Basically we had lost a lot of men, we had lost three men. The Duke of Lancs had lost seven lads, all dead. We’d had a numerous amount of casualties, and we were backed up, to be honest with you. C.O. turned round and said, “Right. We’ve got all this ammo, we’ve got twelve people need arresting…”
What we did was… I’ll draw you a diagram… What we done was a three stage attack. Basra Palace was down here. We went in that way, the Staffords went in that way, and the Duke of Lancs come in that way. The SAS come in, we had Challenger tanks, we had air support. So we come in: Two Rifles done all the strikes, Five Platoon got dropped off to go through these houses, Six Platoon, Seven Platoon — and then we had our outer cordon which prevented anyone from coming in.
P
You’re making a triangle between all of those groups.
L
Three different battalions, a massive battle. When we come in, like you can see us about to go in that first house there, we were just rolling along bang bang bang. And then it just went off. I mean, literally, they were everywhere, in buildings they were… I mean I was in the front of me wagon and they were running out and you were just hitting them (smacks fist into hand to show impact). Everytime you hit someone, another one of them would pop up. Or another one on another roof, it was relentless. Absolutely nuts.
P
It sounds almost like a weird dream. I was saying to Michael, as a kid, when the troops came into Belfast it was really exciting. We thought woooow this is great, we were really pleased there was like a civil war kicking off. What I want to ask you: was it exciting in that situation? Was it exciting and scary? Was it just scary?
L
It’s a hard one, it’s a sinking feeling in your stomach, it’s a feeling you can’t describe. When that first round goes off, it’s a bit of excitement, then the reality. We’d seen that many people killed, you’re just waiting for the radio “Man down!” — And you’re thinking who is it? Or is it gonna be you, you know what I mean? It was just a horrible battle to be in. That battle that day, we experienced another 20 before that. But it like… It was all over BBC News when we blew up the police station, Christmas Day 2007. We actually drove in, took all the prisoners out. Blew the police station up in the middle of Basra and relocated all the prisoners.
But the resistance we met going into there! Driving in, green tracer, come flying at you. They were waiting for us and we had to, literally, had to kill all the enemy. Get a cordon before we could even think about prisoners. We were fighting for 8 1/2 hours solid before we could even get anywhere near the prison. It was fuckin… Al Tarif Nine was probably… we fired more rounds in that than what they did in the full Desert Storm.
(Looks at the photo.) That’s the Fighting Five there, but it’s still not finished taking lives. It’s like my mates, they killed themselves last month.
P
Oh no.
L
K hung himself and so did JP, like.
P
Just as you told me that, I saw the photograph has a statement underneath it: “Not all wounds are are visible. PTSD Awareness.”
L
Yeah I done that for JP. There’s K, there, he was Five Platoon. There’s that one: “In the darkest hour when the demons come calling, brother then we will fight them together.” That was at JP’s wedding. We were sharing a bunk, me and JP. He was my best friend in the army and we saved each other’s life many times. He was true Greenjacket. I miss him so much.
(Sadly JP later took his own life.)
P
Why do you think that happens? When you’ve survived that level of…?
L
It’s living with it. On one of the patrols what we had, they contacted us, which means they shot at us, from a rooftop. In the middle of that was a football field and it just absolutely erupted and people were getting hit. At the end when we were trying to save civilians and all that, there was children, there was women, there was men… it was horrible, like, and it’s something you gotta live with for the rest of your life. He (JP) couldn’t live with it — I struggle to live with it. It took their lives.
P
You’re a very young guy in that situation. Do you think you don’t quite know what you’re into?
L
Yeah, you never know. You get some people, these glass eyes I call em. People with glass eyes, look through everything with glass eyes, cold eyes. And what they say is: “Well you were joining the army, you gotta fight.” Yeah you may do, but when you’ve got them rounds coming at your head, and you can hear people screaming be side they’ve been hit, and the radio’s going and you’re sweating, and you’re in that moment… no training ever prepares you for that. It’s a mad feeling, like, to be honest.
Do you know what, I’d forgotten about it until JP’s funeral, because there’s that much stuff going on out there. We had Katjuscha Rockets come in our bedroom and rip three lads apart in the middle of the night. His face hanging off.
In one of them, we were in a sanger at the OSB, the Old State Building, in the middle of Basra. What happened was, a lad called Jamie Hancock from the Duke of Lancs had just been killed. That day we went there — because they’d been battered that much, this Chindit Company, what we done was give them three day stand-down. So Five Platoon and B Company went to the OSB and stood them down. They went to Basra Airport and had like nice things, just to get their heads together. They were battle-scarred, we took over their guard. So the other week at JP’s funeral I heard one of the lads saying, “Oh d’you remember when we thought ‘Lee’s dead?” And I went: “What dyou mean ‘Lee’s dead?” And he went, “D’you not remember when that RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) hit the sanger…?” There was me and a soldier called P in it. The way soldiers thingy, they laugh, about it. “D’you remember him shitting himself?” Like that right?
He said as the RPGs landed, I took the blast of it. Threw me down, face-first so me nose was broke. Then Pierce got on the radio saying, “‘Lee’s dead, ‘Lee’s dead!” Cos I weren’t moving he thought I was dead. So the QRF come out and got into a contact with them. About 45 seconds to a minute later they just heard this scouse (puts on nasal voice) “Awwww, I’m alright…!” But I’d forgot all about it and we were all laughing about it at the funeral and that — at things like that when me life’s nearly ended. If that RPG had’ve been a foot up, it would’ve blown the pair of us to smithereens and I wouldn’t’ve been here to tell that story.
It was nuts out there, it was wild. That battle I’ve just said about, if you go on(line) it’s called Michael Yon, go on google, it’s called Men of Valour. If you read that it’s about Operezzo the one where we did all the buildings. Read that, he goes into detail and… (reads out article). That was hard, waiting to go into battle and stuff (reads out more). Have a bit of a read of that.
P
When you look at those photos now, do you feel yourself getting sucked back into it? Is it like another life?
L
I never wanna go back to it, but if I’m honest with you it’s something I enjoyed. It’s weird, I’m proud that I done it, but I’m thankful I got home safe. It was fuckin brutal. He was there (indicates article onscreen) and you’ve only got to read the amount of contacts what he witnessed, that fella.
I got a commendation, me. We’d been there for two weeks and one of the wagons had broke. So as we drove around — it’s called the kill zone — as one of the wagons had broke down, M (my commander, he’s died now, he’s one of the ones I was telling you about) said, “ Go round and give us some support from the back.” I go round. As I sat there, the lads dismounted. It’s called fives and twenties, one of the lads goes five metres, one of the lads goes twenty. It’s just to give a bit of support.
The sound of an AK(47) or a Dragunov, is like a loud piece of wood snapping. Tschhh! It’s a very distinct sound and you know it’s an enemy rifle what’s fired at you. As that happened, we hear R screaming and he’s hit the floor and he was bleeding out. The lads had dragged him in the back of me wagon, they were all down. M was screaming at me, “Lee we need to go now, he’s bleeding out, we need to go now!”
But I had only been there for two weeks, I didn’t even know what me route was or anything and I had no commander, I had no top cover. Me Sergeant Major got a Warrior to lead us out, basically give us a lift back, I had to follow him back to Basra Palace. Just as we got out of the fuckin kill zone, on the roofs they contacted us again cos they knew the casualty was in the back of the wagon, firing RPGs at us. The Warrior’s engine just completely blew up. So I could either stay there, take the rounds coming in, or go around. So I’ve shot round them, and how I done it I don’t know, but I just found me way back through the streets of Basra and got em back. Over the radio I was talking to HQ. He lived anyway.
I got a GOC Commendation for it, like. Got a Commendation for it, yeah, within two weeks of being there. There were many moments where you had to step up kind of thing. It weren’t just me, all the other lads done it as well. Five Platoon clicked, d’you know what I mean? In the camp we were called Camp Monsters cos we were always out on the piss, always turning up late and one of us would get caught with a girl in our room… we were proper lad’s lads, but when it come to that battle we screwed them up. There was something different about Five Platoon, than any other platoon in the Battalion.
P
Do you miss that?
L
Yeah. There’s a picture there, with this all back together, on JP’s funeral. It was like we’d never been away from each other. That bond, even though we haven’t seen each other for 10 years, that bond was just… It was contagious. All’s we needed was JP there. People at the funeral were standing around us, listening to all our stories. I done a speech at this funeral and called for the Last Post.
One of the stories about JP at his funeral was: we come back off a patrol, right, and somehow he’s ended up with a fan. A big fan. Well we’re roasting in our room, sweating our tits off, full of dust and all that. The lads have clocked this fan and they’re, “Give us a go of your fan!” And he’s like, “No you’re not using it, it’s my fan.” Like that, so they went, “Oh alright…” This next day we’ve gone back in our room and cos I shared a little bunk space with him, I’ve just heard a sound like a mouse farting. He’s clicked it on and it’s gone zzzzzzzzzzz blip blip blip. We’ve looked and one of the lads has cut his fuckin blades on his fan. He was absolutely soul-destroyed.
So I told that one at the funeral, and another one which was funny, weird but funny like. Do you know a Mexican wave? Well I was getting me kit out of the back of me wagon, throwing make it everywhere. I’m absolutely… I’ve been fighting for hours and hours, now I just want to get in and get me feet up for a couple of hours. Because you only had four hour intervals, and then you were back out. As we get back, I seen everyone jumping out of the way. I’m looking down… JPl had a big nose — and when you’re sweating out there in your helmet, your sweat runs down your nose, so your nose is always clean, no matter how bad the battle is, no matter how much shit you’ve got all over you, your nose will always remain clean — JP had a big nose, so you seen the nose coming before the wagon. As he was driving up, he done a Queen’s Wave to everyone. “Oh hello, hi!” — and all the lads were jumping out the way. I was thinking why are they jumping? And as I looked, an RPG had come at his wagon, the bar arm had caught it, and the full head of the RPG was just sticking out the side of his wagon. All the lads were — “Fuck that!” — jumping out the way. JP didn’t even realise, Oh it was funny.
P
So he had a missile sticking out the side of his vehicle?
L
Yeah, an RPG head. It’s called a bar arm, it catches it. Literally caught it and it didn’t detonate for some reason, the full head of this RPG. It’s weird to think that some Iraqi militia had his hand on that, put that in, fired it at us, and we caught it and we removed it at the end. It’s nuts isn’t it, mad when you think of it. It’s pretty crazy when you think of it like that.
Loads of scenarios where R, at the funeral, would say one and I’d say, “R you’re not getting away with this!” It was R who… JP went to his grave thinking it was me who cut his blades, got on at me in the room. I was like, “Why would I, why would I cut the blades when it’s blowing in our little room? Our little bed space, it’s nice and cool. Why would I do that?” R was just sat there, wouldn’t say nothing. Everyone knew it was him, but JP didn’t grasp it.
This one day, at the funeral I brought it up, we were getting mortared, one day. This is going to sound really sly, but in a mortar attack it’s every man for himself. There is no team, unless someone gets hit, then you save them. When them mortars are coming in, it’s every man for themself. This one day the wagons are all locked up and boom boom boom boom they fired loads of mortars in. Fuck, we’re caught out in the open here. Everyone started running.
You are meant to hit the deck (in a mortar attack) but you just think… the door was there to the cookhouse. Now it’s either stay outside for an hour, or get in and get your scran. So everyone’s like, “Fuck that, we’re off.” While we were running, R was stuck behind JP as he was running. Now he’s a big lad, JP, and R whips his legs out. JP hit the deck, right, and instead of picking him up, everyone just stood on him, jumping on him, running over him. Leaves him on the floor like that. And he’s got a big nose and you just seen his nose. He was like, “You fuckin dickheads!” Honest to God, we were stood in the cookhouse, looking out at him. He had to get under the tank, you could just see this head with a big nose popping out like that. We were all eating our food, aw it was funny, proper funny. There was good times out there, proper soldier times like. JP, being JP, got em back for it and left him in a shower block under a mortar attack with shower gel in his eyes and no clothes. Left him to run right the way thru the Palace with no clothes, just body armour. I miss that lad so much.
My one, what affected me, I’ve got (tattooed) on my arm: AL. AL, he was only 18. I’d come home on R and R and my mum was sick, so they gave me an extra week at home. AL was only 17, he only got a week at home til he turned 18, then he had to go out. He only had a week’s leave. When we went back there was all only Duke of Lancs lads and there was us from Two Rifles. I seen his cap badge and I shouted him and we became like best friends, it was weird. We stayed together for four nights in Basra airport, because there was sand storms and they couldn’t get us in, couldn’t fly us into Basra Palace. Four days, we basically lived together and then we got flew in at 6.30 in the morning. By 12 he was dead.
That’s one that haunted me, that. Haunted me, like yeah. Proper haunted me. You’ll have to look that up, Rifleman AL. He was only a young lad as well, fucking haunted me. How can you just be with someone for four days? It was weird, when we heard that someone from C Company had been hit and was dead, I knew it was him. I just fucking deep down inside of me knew it was him. It was BM who said to me and I said who was it and he said “AL,” and I said, “I fuckin knew it.” I just knew the way things happen and… Weird, weird. He was a nice lad, we just got flu in at 6:30 that morning, and they were out on patrol at nine. He’d been shot in the head by 12. Not like, the dark side of it.
P
I’ve just got a couple more quick questions, and then I think we should stop. You’ve dug into this a lot and you should just do a bit at a time.
When I was a kid it was kind of exciting, but it was also very disturbing. There are couple of things that… As a kid you sort of think more through your senses. There were some really big bombs went off, big bangs. One of the things I remember now is certain big bangs and what happened afterwards. I wonder if there are any big bangs you remember?
L
Yeah. The Katjuscha Rocket that landed in the bedroom. A Katjuscha Rocket and a mortar are two totally different sounds. The whizzzzzzzzzzz! It’s like a whizz what comes in. We were all in bed one night, we just got in off patrol, got our heads down, and you just heard the whizzzzzzzzzzz BOOOM! And it literally… glass, walls, bricks… that one noise still wakes me up today, still wakes me up that fucking noise. I still hear ding-a-ding-ding-ding, bits of shrapnel round the Palace. Then you hear the screaming, “Medic! Medic!” Banging on a locker. We ran in, I’ll tell you who ran in first and the words he actually said. It was M who ran in first and he said, said to me on our balcony, he said “H, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” And then in 2009 he stepped on a pressure plate and it blew both his legs off. Bled out. But that noise of that rocket haunts, Wakes me up of a nighttime. Zzzzzzzzzzzzmph! I’ll be asleep and I’ll just hear it come in. And Boom! And I’m awake.
And then an aeroplane as well, the sound of an aeroplane going over. Mmmmmmmmmmzzzzz. As it passes overhead the plane. It’s not the noises of gunshots, I’ve heard that many of them, nowadays it’s just… it’s that Katjuscha Rocket. And the little things that sound like it. When I hear an aeroplane coming over, you probably wouldn’t even notice me doing it, but my body does it, it stops. It shudders me, me belly goes tight and I just completely freeze. Do you know what I mean? Yeah that’s the one thing that’s always stuck with me, that freezing. And then I get on with it and it may only last for a second, or two seconds, but every single time an aeroplane comes over me mind goes BANG and it stops.
P
The other thing that I remember, and sort of loved but hated at the same time, was fire. We were coming back from holiday and we were all relaxed and we came through Belfast. I don’t know why, maybe dad had to go to his office. And this building has just gone up and it was still glowing red. In a way it was really beautiful…
L
But it was the horror that went with it. Ours wasn’t so much flame. It was smoke, smoke trails. There was no gas mains that could be hit or anything because they didn’t have gas or anything there. It was just smoke. when you fire a UGL — ba-boom — or a mortar would come in BOOM, you’d get the flash straightaway. But it was always smoke, you were always in smoke. I think in the films way you see it all on fire, it’s not really the way it is. It is more smokes than flames on a battlefield, it is more smoke than flames. Always has been, always has been for me. When I see the smoke coming out the top of the house on fire, it reminds me like a mortar just hit it or something. Or a 500lb bomb, off a Typhoon.
That’s a noise as well. That’s a beautiful noise. When they drop a 500lb bomb when you’re pinned down. Yeah, you can hear rounds going babababoom, going off. Then as that comes over incoming – zzzzzzzwfff TAAADOOOF! It’s like the blast wave, shock wave, heat wave, all of that just happened. And it’s just sheer silence, complete and utter silence. You know that a lot of lives have just ended. It’s a mad feeling when that hit, a TAAADOOOF! But it’s a beautiful moment, because youse are pinned down to that much. You only call them in when it’s absolutely necessary. When there’s hundreds of them in a compound letting rip at you and you’ve got two casualties down and every time you’re going to get someone out you’re getting hit BOOM (smacks fist into hand) and you’re trying to get someone else out. And there’s nothing you can do but call the Americans in, or call the Brits in to get you out of the shit.
Do you know who’s got the most confirmed kills in Iraq on a battlefield? I’m going to learn you something now: Prince Harry. Prince Harry has got the most confirmed kills out of anybody. When he was an Apache gunner, he was the man. If you ask any soldiers about Prince Harry, they’ll all high-five. He was an absolute legend, like. He is a legend, Prince Harry. He was dead accurate with his gun, you’d hear him overhead. The lads used to say: “He’s been on his tour.”
P
Quite a thing, the experience you’re describing. But how to take it, and do something with it now? Looking back.
L
I didn’t, me. I just drink myself into oblivion, if I’m honest with you. That’s what I done, but everyone is different aren’t they? My spirit now… JP’s death has given me strength to carry on now. I see now my funeral as going… I was planning to take my own life. I just lost my mum and son. Me mum died on the Sunday, the Tuesday me ex-missus haemorrhaged at 33 weeks and then me little lad died three and a half weeks later. Me mum died on the 20th of July, me son died on the 20th of August. I use them now to drive me on. Then the death of JP was the final straw for me. Them three deaths gave me the strength to get my life changed forever. I’ve sat in self pity, I’ve sat in it all settle for too long now. I’ve just gotta get on and get it done now, change my life. That’s the plan man.
P
It’s a good plan, I approve that plan! It’s about life, it’s about living again.
Rifleman Lee was interviewed by Philip Davenport
30 August 2018
Tom Harrison House, Liverpool.
Lee wishes to dedicate this interview to the late Greenjacket JP, a true hero — “And I would like to thank JP’s brother for his support while in treatment. And my beauty of a girlfriend Kelsey.”