Unconquerable: The Invictus Spirit
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
FIRST EDITION
© Boris Starling 2017
Cover layout design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photograph © Daily Mail 2014 (main image), © Shutterstock (wheelchair figure)
Plate-section photographs courtesy of the competitors, except where indicated
Boris Starling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein and secure permissions, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future edition of this book.
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Source ISBN: 9780008240080
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008240103
Version: 2017-08-07
DEDICATION
For those who competed in London and Orlando, for those who are competing in Toronto, and for those who will compete in Sydney and beyond. You are an inspiration, each and every one of you. You are unconquered.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Invictus Games
Foreword by Prince Harry
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Invictus
Prologue: The Night Which Covers Me
1 Find Me Unafraid
2 This Place of Wrath and Tears
3 Bloody but Unbowed
4 How Charged with Punishments the Scroll
5 The Fell Clutch of Circumstance
6 Not Winced Nor Cried Aloud
7 My Unconquerable Soul
8 The Master of My Fate
Epilogue: The Captain of My Soul
Picture Section
About the Publisher
ABOUT THE INVICTUS GAMES
The Invictus Games are an international multisport event for WIS (wounded, injured and sick) Armed Services personnel and veterans. The Games use the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and increase awareness of the sacrifices made by those who serve.
The first Invictus Games took place in London on 10–14 September 2014. Thirteen nations were represented and 413 competitors took part: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Competitions took place across nine adaptive sports: archery, athletics, indoor rowing, powerlifting, road cycling, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. The Presenting Partner, Jaguar Land Rover, also offered a driving challenge.
The inaugural Invictus Games have created the blueprint for inspiring many more ‘wounded warriors’ on their journey of recovery, and the success of the Games prompted the organisers to stage a follow-up. They know that hundreds more wounded warriors around the world could benefit from taking part in the Invictus Games. So they established the Invictus Games Foundation to develop and pursue the Invictus Games legacy and continue to make a difference to the lives of wounded, injured and sick Service personnel around the world.
There was not enough time to get one up and running in 2015, so the second Invictus Games took place in Orlando, Florida, on 8–12 May 2016. All the nations from 2014 participated again, plus Jordan. Wheelchair tennis was added to the roster of sports. Altogether 485 competitors took part.
The third Invictus Games are taking place in Toronto on 23–30 September 2017. Romania and Ukraine are competing for the first time, and golf has been added to the list of sports. More than 550 competitors are taking part.
The fourth Invictus Games will take place in Sydney on 20–27 October 2018.
FOREWORD BY PRINCE HARRY
This book gives an insight into the lives of servicemen and women who have been wounded or faced life-changing illness in the Armed Forces: what goes through their minds at the moment of injury; the effect this event has on their family and friends; the long and often painful road to recovery; where they find the strength and courage to keep fighting; and how they embrace a life that they had never imagined.
The stories of the men and women in this book are some of the most inspiring examples of courage and determination you will read anywhere. Not because they are superhuman; in fact, quite the opposite – they are normal people who have fought hard to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges and come back stronger! I am extremely grateful to them for sharing their experiences so honestly. I am also delighted that they have been given this opportunity to tell their stories and, in doing so, inspire millions of people around the world by their example.
It is important to remember that this book highlights just a handful of stories from Invictus Games competitors who have experienced life-altering events. There are hundreds of other servicemen and women who showcase their Invictus spirit every day by overcoming injury and illness, reminding us what grit, determination, defiance and the will to succeed really mean.
This book recognises the amazing example set by our servicemen and women, their contribution to society and ultimately the sacrifices they are prepared to make for their country.
We can all draw strength from these breathtaking stories. The men and women who feature in this book, and the many others like them around the world, are a constant reminder that it is possible to overcome adversity, and that the impossible is possible if you have the will.
I am proud that the Invictus Games continue to change lives every day and am confident that you will be as moved and inspired by these stories as I have been.
Prince Harry
INTRODUCTION
When I started Unconquerable, my thinking was guided by two lines of belief. First, that the Invictus Games would be like the Olympics or Paralympics, where the medal table is both pride and curse and where lip service is paid to the importance of taking part while all the attention goes to those standing on the podium. Second, that there’d be a definite hierarchy within the WIS network. The wounded, those who’d lost limbs in battle, would, in a perverse way, be the glamour squad, the ones who’d suffered the most and whose very appearance would be a constant reminder of the sacrifices they’d made. Behind them would come the injured, and bringing up the rear would be the sick, because everybody gets sick now and then, don’t they?
I could hardly have been more wrong on both counts if I’d tried.
When you watch the Olympics and Paralympics, most of the pleasure you get is from watching people who are the very best in the world at what they do. Their backstories are usually irrelevant, though not always – the impact of, for instance, the German weightlifter Matthias Steiner’s gold medal at Beijing in 2008 is magnified severalfold when you know that his wife, Susann, had been killed in a car crash the year before and he’d promised her as she lay dying that he’d become champion in her memory.
Olympians and Paralympians dedicate their lives to those few minutes every four years, and are judged on the order in which they finish. Those who compete in the Invictus Games are very different. Who wins which medal is almost irrelevant. It’s not the finish line which counts, it’s the start line. Even to get to that start line after what these people have been through is a triumph in itself, a triumph made sweeter by the demands and joys of competition – the camaraderie, the challenge, the banter, the exploration of one’s limits.
And because everyone who competes has gone through some version of hell to get there, there is no comparing or grading of afflictions. More than one triple amputee told me that, yes, what they’d been through was horrific and, yes, day-to-day living could be very tricky, but there was also an acceptance of their situation and a determination to make the best of it. Their limbs weren’t going to grow back, but nor were they going to deteriorate still further. The worst had come and gone. Crack on.
Compare that to those undergoing prolonged cancer treatment or suffering the excruciating debilitations of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Less visible ailments, sure, but no less serious for that: in some ways more serious, with the uncertainty of what might happen in the future and the fluctuations in how they feel not just week to week but day to day and sometimes even hour to hour.
I didn’t know any of this at the start, but I learned pretty fast. I already knew that watching world-class athletes achieve greatness was inspiring. Now I learned that watching wounded warriors achieve greatness was more than inspiring. It was life-changing.
As a writer, you do some projects for love and some for money. Now and then, though very seldom, you get to work on something which is an absolute privilege. Writing Unconquerable was one of those rare, precious things. Every day I felt humbled by the extraordinary stories I was hearing and awestruck at the astonishing resilience of the human spirit.
I hope that when you read this book you see why.
Boris Starling, May 2017
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to all those without whom this book could not have happened.
Those competitors who gave up their time over coffee, beer, Skype or e-mail to talk to me with such unflinching candour: Amy Baynes, Josh Boggi, Darlene Brown, Bart Couprie, Kai Cziesla, Seb David, Christine Gauthier, Mike Goody, Maurice Manuel, Stephan Moreau, Sarah Rudder, Maurillia Simpson, Fabio Tomasulo, Phil Thompson, Zoe Williams, Mary Wilson and Rahmon Zondervan.
The wonderful Cake Lady, Kath Ryan, for telling me her own unique story.
Sara Trott, for her insight into what life is like for friends and families.
At the Invictus Games Foundation, Dominic Reid, Julie Burley and Mickey Richards.
The staff of the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court, particularly Peter Haslam, Lt Col Rhodri Phillip, Kate Sherman, Mark Thoburn and Lt Col Gareth Thomas.
Hannah Lawton of the GB Rowing Team Paralympic Programme and all the other coaches and hopefuls at the Bath University training weekend, who tolerated me asking them questions when they had better things to do.
At HarperCollins, Liz Dawson for suggesting me for this project, Oliver Malcolm for agreeing with her, Emily Arbis for pulling everything together, and Simon Gerratt and Jane Donovan for eagle-eyed copy-editing.
At Caskie Mushens, Juliet Mushens and Nathalie Hallam.
At Kensington Palace, Kat McKeever and of course Prince Harry, whose passion for and eloquence about the Invictus Games cause comes from the heart and is awe-inspiring.
My parents, David and Judy Starling, and my in-laws, Jenie and Jeremy Wyatt.
And as always, my wife, Charlotte, and our children, Florence and Linus, the three captains of my soul.
INVICTUS
Out of the night which covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley, 1875
PROLOGUE
THE NIGHT WHICH COVERS ME
1 March 2008
Five miles above the earth, the night inky-black outside, the young officer bit down hard on his anger.
The transport plane was full of blokes going home: tired, happy, relieved to have survived their tours in Afghanistan pretty much unscathed, at least on the outside. The officer wasn’t part of these men: he was a Second Lieutenant in the Household Cavalry and his men were still out in Afghanistan. He was going home not because he wanted to but because he’d been ordered to, and he wasn’t at all happy about it. He’d been in Afghanistan for 10 weeks and his tour was supposed to be 14. Ten weeks was easily long enough to get a campaign medal, but he didn’t much care about that: he cared about being with his men until the end.
He’d loved it out in Afghanistan. For the first time in his life he’d been treated as a normal bloke rather than anyone special. He’d trained hard and done his job well: patrolling the deserted bombed-out streets of Garmsir, southern Helmand Province, defending his position from Taliban mortar and machine-gun attacks, and calling in airstrikes on enemy positions. To the pilots who dropped 500lb bombs on the co-ordinates he gave them he was just ‘Widow Six Seven’, his callsign – they didn’t know his real name and they wouldn’t have cared if they had. It was the people back home who cared, not the men in theatre. He’d slept alongside those men in Hesco wire-mesh gabion bunkers and used the rounded ends of missile cases as shaving bowls with them. He was a good soldier and a good man – that was all that mattered to them.
There was only really one thing the officer hadn’t seen, and that was death or serious injury. Sure, he’d called in many medical evacuations for soldiers who’d been blown up by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or shot in contact with Taliban fighters. Sometimes he’d said ‘op vampire’ when the casualty needed a lot of blood, and that always sent shivers down his spine. He’d lain in bed late at night and felt the place shaking from the downforce of a Chinook or a Black Hawk carrying the wounded, but he’d never seen someone killed or maimed.
Here, now, on the transport plane high above the Black Sea, he saw it.
The plane had been late leaving Kandahar Airfield because it had to wait for the coffin of a Danish soldier. Morten Krogh Jensen, just 21, had only been in Afghanistan three weeks. He’d been one of those people whom everyone had naturally liked: in a no-holds-barred team review of each soldier’s performance, Krogh had been the only one with nothing negative said about him whatsoever. Now his body was being repatriated to the seaside town of Frederikssund, where he’d helped his friends paint the hulls of boats in the harbour, where he’d convened groups to head for techno concerts in nearby Copenhagen, and where his family waited with an unfathomable hole in their lives.
Krogh’s coffin was kept out of sight, as were three British soldiers who’d been seriously wounded and were being taken back to Britain’s premier military hospital at Selly Oak in Birmingham. These soldiers were behind a curtain at the front of the plane, yet now and then the curtain blew open slightly and the young officer could see them. They were in a bad way: wrapped up in what looked like clingfilm and with bandages round the stumps of missing limbs. One of them was clutching a tiny bottle full of shrapnel removed from his skull. They were all in induced comas.
The young officer saw all this, as raw and visceral a face of war as could be. Too raw and visceral to be shown on the news, too raw and visceral for a public who didn’t, couldn’t, know the true cost of conflict unless they knew this. He hadn’t prepared himself, and the sight shocked and rattled him somewhere deep within himself. It certainly put his own frustrations into perspective.
The transport plane made its relentless way north-west, over the sleeping cities of Europe through which so much history had marched. It was daylight when the plane landed at Birmingham to unload the three wounded men, and mid-morning by the time it made the short hop back to RAF Brize Norton, where most people were disembarking. The young officer was 41st off the plane. No special treatment.
No special treatment, that was, until his feet stepped onto the tarmac. He may have been 41st off the plane, but he was still third in line to the throne, and numbers one and two were waiting for him. In Afghanistan he had been Second Lieutenant Wales. Now he was Prince Harry again.
He’d been pulled out for his own safety after details of his presence in Afghanistan had been made public. Once the news was out it was out, and so too was Harry.
He drove back to Windsor with his father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William. The English countryside rolled past the windows, so much gentler and greener than the harsh browns of Afghanistan.
He thought about the men he’d seen behind that curtain. He wondered what he could do for them. There had to be something. But what? He had questions but no answers; he had a problem with no solution. But at least he was asking those questions. At least he recognised there was a problem.
Neither Prince Harry nor anyone else knew it at the time, but he had sown the first seeds of what would eventually blossom into the Invictus Games.
COMPETITOR PROFILE:
MAURICE MANUEL, DENMARK
Maurice Manuel speaks perfect English. That in itself isn’t unusual for a Dane, but in Maurice’s case his fluency comes from more than just education. His father was American – a Vietnam vet who did two tours of duty in that most agonising of wars and then decided to stay in Germany.
‘He was told it was a better life there than it would have been for a black army veteran back home at the time.’ A conflict which was becoming polarisingly unpopular and with the civil rights movement at its most fractious: whoever gave Manuel Snr that advice was probably spot on. So stay in Germany he did. He became a radiologist and married Maurice’s mother, a Danish lady.
The lure of the military burned strongly in Maurice, even though in Denmark soldiers weren’t so revered as they are in the United States or respected as much as they are in the United Kingdom. The majority of Danes opposed intervention in both Iraq and Afghanistan right from the start. When Maurice went out to serve in the Middle East, therefore, he knew he was doing so for a country at best ambivalent about his presence there.
Maurice did two tours in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. He was a military policeman for all but the last one, for which he studied Pashto, the official language of Afghanistan, so he could become a combat interpreter and help liaise between the Western forces and the Afghan National Army.
It was 14 December 2010 when his life changed. He doesn’t need to look the date up, he remembers it as easily as he would his own birthday.
‘It was a completely normal patrol. We were down there before sunrise, and I was in charge of the sound commander.’ A sound commander is, more technically, a ‘wide area mass notification system’: it can broadcast messages to be heard far away, and the operator can also programme in sound effects such as suppressive gunfire and helicopter rotors to give the impression of a larger military presence than actually existed.
‘I left it somewhere while we continued the patrol. When we’d finished, I went to get it. I saw it down the end of a path. I’d not gone 20 metres when I thought: “I don’t think this path’s been swept [for IEDs].” And that second, that very second, I stepped on one. There was dust everywhere. I was thrown backwards, I looked down, and I saw the bottom of my right fibia sticking out of my boot. I grabbed a tourniquet and wrapped it round my thigh as hard as I could.’
Some of his colleagues were a kilometre and a half away when the IED went off, and even at that distance they heard not just the explosion but Maurice’s shout of pain too. Not only did they have to go back and get him, but then take him out another 2km on a stretcher, as the Merlin medevac helicopter wouldn’t come in closer than that during a TIC (troops in contact) situation for fear that it too would be a target for attack.
The next seven or eight hours of Maurice’s life are just fragmentary memories through a haze of shock, morphine and ‘whatever heavier they gave me’. Now and then he woke for a few seconds to see lights in an operating theatre or surgeons leaning over him, the next moment he was out cold again. They kept him in Bastion for three days before flying him home the scenic route – Qatar, Germany, the UK and finally Denmark, where the surgeon told him he’d never be able to run again and he’d have to wear corrective shoes.
‘Let’s amputate,’ Maurice said.
But the surgeon refused. He thought it would be better to keep everything intact if possible. Reluctantly, Maurice agreed, and spent the next nine months in rehab, trying to build the damaged leg back up to some kind of strength again – ‘It was a fiasco from the get-go.’
Maurice did his research: he found medical papers online, he talked to a couple of US Rangers who’d sustained similar injuries. Then he went back to the surgeon and told him they’d tried rehab, it hadn’t worked, and now he was insisting on what he’d asked for at the start: he wanted to be a below-the-knee amputee. This time the surgeon had little choice but to agree.
‘I had the chop on 15 August 2011.’ Another date he doesn’t need to look up. ‘Three weeks later I was up and walking on a prosthetic. Two months after that I was running.’
The invitation to the 2014 Invictus Games came through the Soldier Project at the Danish Handicap Association, and Maurice didn’t need asking twice. He’d been a keen sprinter and basketballer before his injury, so he signed up for track and field, wheelchair basketball (where he was made captain and coach) and wheelchair rugby too.
It was a busy schedule for anyone, and made more so by the fact that one of his family members was unwell and he had to spend a lot of time caring for them. If it stressed him, he never let it show. He competed in the best traditions of both soldier and sportsman: no quarter asked nor given on the field of play, but generous in his praise and commiserations once the final whistle had been blown or the finish line crossed.