family jewels still intact?’ That was Corporal Andy Reid’s first question when he regained consciousness after standing on a Taliban IED, which blew off both his legs and one arm, ten days before the end of his tour in Afghanistan as a British Army infantryman. Fortunately for Andy, his future wife Claire and now their son William, the answer was a resounding yes.
He tells me this when I meet him in his hometown. He has kindly collected me from the station, rolling by in his pimped-up 4x4 Jeep, with tinted windows, spoilers, the works. This is no typical disability vehicle, and Andy’s is no typical story.
Back in his kitchen, while he deftly one-handedly makes tea for us both, Andy recounts the time his parents first came to see him in hospital after he was evacuated from Afghanistan. Finding their son in bed, missing both legs and an arm, and with the remaining one in plaster, his dad, not knowing what else to do, patted Andy on the head. ‘I said, “I’m not a fucking dog, Dad,” and as soon as I said that we all started laughing and we knew then, it is going to be OK.’
To Andy, the jokes are ‘squaddie banter’, the humour that soldiers use to lighten the mood and bring a bit of normality to situations that are often anything but. ‘Four weeks after the accident, I went on a Remembrance Parade, and it was really cold, so I said to the boys, “It’s bloody freezing, I can hardly feel my toes.” It made everyone crack up and removed any awkwardness.’
The last thing Andy wants is people stepping on eggshells around him or feeling sorry for him. ‘I joined up and I accept responsibility for what’s happened to me, I knew the risks. That’s helped me move on a lot easier. You don’t move on very far by blaming someone else every time, it’s just going to make you depressed and angry and bitter.’ It’s a way of thinking that shows the resilience and determination that makes Andy such a role-model soldier.
Instead of being bitter, each year Andy celebrates the day of the explosion. He calls it Happy Being Alive Day. ‘When I woke up in hospital I realised I wasn’t a victim, I was a survivor. Six of the guys from my company all died from one IED. I got to leave hospital after two weeks and go home, they didn’t.’ He says he needs to honour those fellow soldiers who weren’t lucky enough to come back by living his life to the fullest rather than sitting around feeling sorry for himself.
One piece of advice he passes on to other people dealing with such a life-changing challenge is to remember that ‘the body will achieve what the mind believes’. On each Happy Being Alive Day he sets himself a goal to do something physically challenging to prove he can do it. With this attitude he has so far climbed Snowdon, run a 10k race, cycled most of Britain and skydived twice, all things people would assume were out of the picture but which Andy willed into reality.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
