Service members are often faced with lines to cross: enlistment, tactical decisions, transitioning out of the military, and deciding what to do next. The decision they make at each crossroads not only determines the path of the journey they are on, it also plays a role in shaping the person they will become.

Mark Ormrod is a former Royal Marine, Invictus Games athlete, author, and motivational speaker. He joined the Marines for adventure and found direction, although not immediately. He completed his minimum service in 2006, but re-enlisted in 2007 and was deployed to Afghanistan where he found himself patrolling on foot, protecting local villages and disrupting enemy positions.

On Christmas Eve, he was on patrol with his unit when he stepped on an IED, losing both legs and his right arm and only keeping his life thanks to a risky new procedure that had just been approved for use in the field.

In this episode of Veteran Voices, co-hosted by Kim Winter, Founder of Logistics Executive Group, and Scott Luton, Mark is open and honest about:
• The journey with the Royal Marines that took him into Helmand Province in Afghanistan and changed his life forever
• His fight back from triple amputation and how found a new plan for the future
• The power and opportunity he has found in sharing his story with others

Intro/Outro (00:02):

Welcome to veteran voices, a podcast dedicated to giving a voice to those that have served in the United States, armed forces on this series, jointly presented by supply chain now, and vets to industry. We sit down with a wide variety of veterans and veteran advocates to gain their insights, perspective, and stories from serving. We taught with many individuals about their challenging transition from active duty to the private sector, and we discuss some of the most vital issues facing veterans today. Join us for this episode of veteran voices.

Scott Luton (00:40):

Good morning, Scott Luton and special guest hosts. Kim Winter with you right here on veteran voices. Thanks for joining us today. We’ve got a wonderful episode teed up with an extraordinary and very inspirational veteran and business leader. Uh, Kim, I’ll tell you, this is going to be an awesome episode on it. Hey,

Kim Winter (00:59):

Start, great and great to see you again. And, uh, yeah, you did right in my absolute pleasure to, uh, contact that our guests some time ago and tie some of that come and join us. And then tell us a story. It’s going to be a bit of a spiritual event today.

Scott Luton (01:12):

I couldn’t say it better, and I do appreciate it as always your great facilitation and it comes natural for you. Uh, of course it doesn’t hurt that, that you know, everybody across the world, all the movers and shakers, just like this gentleman here, but it’ll be a, a pleasure and honor to get through the interview with you here today. So folks listen and tuned in. You might be watching, you might be listening and you’re not gonna want to miss this episode today. A quick programming note before we get started here, of course, this program is part of our supply chain. Now family programming, you can find veteran voices wherever you get your podcasts from our show is conducted in partnership with a powerful nonprofit, doing big things for the veteran community here in the states, vets to industry, uh, vets, pneumo to an industry.org. Learn more about this, what they’re doing, uh, to help veterans connect with resources, connect with each other and find opportunities as well as solve problems@vetstoindustry.org.

Scott Luton (02:07):

Okay. With no further ado, Kim, I’m going to introduce our guests that you ready, ready to rock and roll. Here we go. So today we’re gonna be speaking with, uh, Royal Marines, commando and hero to many. Our guests overcome a devastating injury in 2007 to inspire others to overcome their own obstacles. He’s since become internationally acclaimed motivational speaker, a peak performance coach and the author of the award-winning autobiography man down and even better yet. This is my favorite part. Our guests is relentless when it comes to helping others, raising funds for special projects, non-profits just paying it forward. Uh, just the heart of a servant leader. So join me in welcoming, Mr. Mark. Ormrod mark. How are we doing

Mark Ormrod (02:55):

Great. Thank you for that warm and grand. I appreciate it. Well, it

Scott Luton (03:02):

Is a very genuine one that we do admire what you do and, and admire your journey and how it just, it gives you more reason to go out there and make a bigger difference and move the needle even more. So, uh, really appreciate that. And we look forward to diving more into that story here today on veteran voices. So Kim, what we’re going to start with mark is, is simple. It’s where we always start, right? We like to kind of share some of Mark’s humanities. One of our favorite questions asked here is, you know, where’d, you grow up mark and, and tell us about, uh, some of your childhood.

Mark Ormrod (03:35):

So I grew up in the UK and as you can probably tell by my accent down in the Southwest, in a little city called Plymouth, just down on the coast, I was born in the eighties, raised in the nineties. And in fact, they’re going to be 38 years old tomorrow. So I had a I’m sure every generation says this, but I had what I think is the greatest upbringing ever. You know, that you didn’t go home for dinner in the evenings for the street lights came on, or your parents screamed your name from the doorstep that you were out all the time, doing sports and building Dans and causing mischief for your friends, you know, and, and I had everything that a kid could ever need or ever one growing

Scott Luton (04:22):

Up. Mark, I got to ask you, did you get into trouble as a kid a lot or are you really good?

Mark Ormrod (04:28):

No, I did. But only, only like cheeky mischievous kind of things. I was never intentionally bad. Right. But you know, just, just little silly bits and pieces, you know, doing things I shouldn’t be doing as a kid, kind of pushing the boundaries and test it out. You know, how far I could push grownups, I guess, um, before they came down on me, but honestly, you know, childhood was, was brilliant. You know, I got a lot of fresh air got to experience a lot of things. School was, you know, no better, no worse than everyone else’s. So you

Scott Luton (05:06):

Enjoy being outside a lot as a kid. Is that right? Outdoor sports dens, you name it?

Mark Ormrod (05:11):

Yeah, absolutely more. Especially when I was younger, you know, around about, I think maybe when I turned 10, I discovered the, uh, the Sega games console. So that, that kept me indoors a bit more than it should have. Was that the Sega Genesis? It was, yeah. See, I was Sonic the hedgehog. Um, but you know, when I wasn’t doing that, I was out just trying to be, you know, a young lad by an officer manager and have some adventures with my friends. I love

Scott Luton (05:39):

That. I love that. Well, can that, that’s a perfect segue, uh, into some of the things we want to know about his military experience, right?

Kim Winter (05:47):

Yeah. Thanks, Scott and mark. Uh, you’re welcome again. And from here in the middle east, we’ve been a little bit of time and, uh, in, in, in special shout out all the bits and the current serving personnel joining us today and thank you for your service because, uh, especially in these times that we’re living in, uh, the respect for people keeping us safe, uh, can never be under underestimated. So you guys cheat, you may, um, I mean, it’s special for me, my family, actually in Scott, you won’t know this, but, um, my one side of my family has got a very long history in the British Royal Navy and Marines. And, um, so, uh, to, uh, my father’s age group a little bit special, Hey mate, uh, really interested in following you on LinkedIn in particular mark over the last, uh, G was six months in, or of what you’ve been up to. And it’s incredible that we want to hear that story today. Some of the things you get into that at the top of the show, you what really inspired you to join the Royal Marines. Cause that’s no mean feat to get accepted in there.

Mark Ormrod (06:54):

Yeah. So what it was is what, where I grew up, all of my friends were two or three years older than me and I, in fact, one of my friends who are, who I’m still very close to today turns 40 today. So he was one of the guys I went to school with, grew up with and there was actually him. He was one of the main drivers that when I was coming to the end of my compulsory education and I, you know, 15 and a half years old, just about to take some exams and then decide, do I go to college university into the real world? You know, make some tough decisions. He was already in the army. Uh, he was suffering in Germany in the tank regiment. And when he came home, he would always wear, it seemed, he would always have money in the bank, you know, notion new car, but go out drinking and partying on the weekends.

Mark Ormrod (07:45):

It would tell me all the stories about, you know, the fitness tests that he’d done and the time he spent on the ranges shooting and all this kind of stuff. And when I was at that point in my life, trying to figure out which fork in the road I wanted to take, I just remember sitting there thinking, you know, that sounds really cool, what he’s doing, you know, and I’m, I’m a adventurous kind of guy I’m outdoorsy. I’d love to do that kind of stuff. And it, and it seemed to me like it would be a very fulfilling career that would enable me to grow as an individual now in Plymouth, where I live, it’s a very military city, we’ve got army, we’re all Marines and Navy or in this little sea, but I never knew who the Royal Marines were. I just thought, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got John and a couple of other friends in the army when you watch a film and you see soldiers, I guess they’re all in the army.

Mark Ormrod (08:41):

So, you know, that’s, if you want to be a soldier and have that kind of life and that kind of career, then you join the army. So he actually took me to the careers office to speak to the army recruiter when he was on leave. One time I came back home with the paperwork because I was under 16. I had to get my parents to look it over and sign it. And my dad actually told me that I had an uncle who was a Royal Marine. He had, he had gone in as a Marine, which is our equivalent to a private and over 22 years, he had rose to the rank of captain and he’d left as a commissioned officer. And he only lived 15 miles at the road. So we got in the call when we can, we went up to see him. And I remember he lived on like a, like a small farm, you know, in this cottage.

Mark Ormrod (09:32):

Yeah. He had a couple of horses, big outstation, dog, and chickens and everything running around. And I just remember this big kind of barn door, which was the front door to his house. And I walked in there and there was a huge framed citation on the wall with a sword on top of it with a green Baret hanging off the end of it. Wow. And it was a, it was like an officer’s citation that he got after 22 years of server. And it was an officer’s sword that he was issued when he commissioned to captain and the Greenbrae that you’d obviously, aren’t when he passed his basic training and he sat me down and he talked to me about his career and he told me about how the Royal Marines were different to the army. They were a different kind of soldier and what it was that they did that made them different.

Mark Ormrod (10:20):

He told me about his career and all the things that he had experienced and gone through and the kind of things that I could expect to experience. And it just changed my mindset and my direction. So I went back to the career center after the weekend, spoke to the Royal Marines recruiter. And you just remember this, uh, VHS cassettes. So he took out the VHS cassette, put it in the TV video combination thing. And I just sat there on my jaw, on the floor. As I saw these guys, you know, they were, they were screaming up to beaches and speedboats and assault and beaches. They were jumping out of helicopters for parachutes. They were fast roping out of helicopters. They had these big packs on their back and they were, y’all put up these huge mountains and soul just where do I sign? Exactly. And I was like, that’s what I’m doing.

Mark Ormrod (11:09):

So I took that paper. I went home, got it all signed, sent it off, went back to school, finished the exams. And then I got a letter that invited me to do what was called the three-day potential war Marines course, which is an opportunity for you to go. And first of all, see if it’s actually what you want to do. If it’s the career for you, the kind of environment that you want to be in. And secondly, it’s a chance for the train rule Marines that put you through about three days to see whether you’re ready or whether you need to go back home and do a bit of continuation training

Kim Winter (11:47):

On that point. Uh, I know there upon very shortly after we can let us know how it also joined the commandos, which is, sounds like the best of the bid.

Mark Ormrod (11:57):

I mean, they’re all Marines are commandos. It’s one of the same. Yeah, well that was the next level up. So I won’t, I won’t go into this too much because I’ll probably get it wrong. But the Royal Marines used to be separate. The army were the original commandos, and then we integrated it into the later stages of our training, which is when the Greenbrae was involved. But yeah, I passed that three days went home. I had a training program just stuck to it religiously, you know, to the letter, did everything that they asked me to do. And it was required of me, which was pretty difficult. Cause I was only 16 years old at the time to discipline yourself, to go out on runs and everything. While your friends are partying and seemingly doing stuff, that’s a lot more fun than what you doing, but I did it. And then after I turned 17, I got a letter and an invitation to go and join and start my basic recruit training in February, 2001.

Kim Winter (12:51):

So you’re in the commandos mark and uh, no doubt. You’re, um, you’re, you’re seeing service. So, uh, as much as you can tell us a moment, share with us where you went and what were the, uh, what were the duties? What were the missions?

Mark Ormrod (13:04):

Yeah. So I’ll tell you what was quite unique about my situation was I, I started recruit training in February, 2001. Now the training back then was 30 weeks long. If you made it in one go, if you didn’t get injured and you passed every test they put in front of you, when you factor in Christmas, leave summer, leave easterly, that kind of things. It’s nearly a year. If you can do it in one hit. And I finished my train and I was very fortunate that I did do it in one hit, but I finished it in October, 2001. So it was about four weeks after nine 11. So I remember we we’d done all the hard and technical part of training. We’d done the, the world famous commando tests. We were kind of doing the ceremonial kind of stuff, getting ready for the big, fancy passing out parade.

Mark Ormrod (13:53):

And me and my troop were in the diner, just shoveling burgers and chips and junk food down our face when we all saw nine 11 on the news. And so we knew that, you know, very shortly after we had officially passed out a training, we were going to be going and doing what we just spent the last year trained to do, which for me, you know, I turned 18 at this point, you know, for an 18 year old who had just been given a green Baret and told that he’s invincible is very young, cocky, and brash, it’s actually quite exciting. You know? So we, we passed that a training did, uh, you know, a month or two of just floating around waiting to get drafted to my unit. And then early 2002, I was straight into predeployment training to go to Afghanistan on what was then called operations Yakama.

Mark Ormrod (14:41):

So 18 years old, green Baret, pre predeployment training, ready to go to war excited a bit nervous, but ultimately I think I’m ready to go. And I’m keen to test myself, see if I can do what I’m trained to do. And then all of a sudden the whole thing got scaled back. A load of us didn’t end up going. It became more of a, I think, a special forces kind of reconnaissance style thing. So it was a little bit disappointed. I settled back into unit life. I ended up going to Norway and learning how to fight and survive in the Arctic and how to ski tactically, not, not gracefully.

Scott Luton (15:23):

That’s like a scene out of James Bond, Kim, uh, w w as mark just shared that, that is so you were in the Arctic and the temperatures had to be, I mean, how, how did you adapt to that cold weather?

Mark Ormrod (15:34):

I mean, you get some good kit and you’re constantly on the move when you’re skiing. So you’re keeping your body temperature warm. But what I liked about it is all the training stops when you get to minus study. But because of, cause we were in Norway that time of year, we were there. I think you got four hours a daylight and that was it. So you spent a lot of time sleeping, you would get this big 10 out and there’d be eight of you in this tent and you’d just be eating and sleeping. So, and then when they, when they needed you to, they would teach out, uh, to fight and survive, you know, and you know, all that kind of stuff. So it was really cool because it enabled me to grow as an individual and push myself outside of my comfort zone. But we did a couple of bits back in the UK and I ended up boxing for the Marines and then 2003 came and Iraq became a big thing for us.

Mark Ormrod (16:22):

And so again, I got put on the predeployment training, very similar to the training, the predeployment training for Afghanistan, the time came around and this time it was full steam ahead. I deployed as something called operation. Telic one, I turned 19 at this point and it was the initial push from QA into Iraq where a load of us, well, I wasn’t involved in this, but a lot of the guys went in, took the palace, the oil fields. I was working out of a place called [inaudible] Naval base. We went in there, took over that place. Cause I was my role that I got kind of taken out of the brigade and put as forced protection for an army medical field hospital, looking after medics and ambulance and that kind of stuff. And they were kind of casualties. So I went and did a rack, came back from there.

Mark Ormrod (17:14):

It’s a little bit, if I’m honest, disheartened with it all. Cause they didn’t fire a single round. I had this big idea in my mind of what going to war was going to be like, and for me, my Iraq, it wasn’t that, that aside I spent a lot of time protecting ambulances, medics, field hospitals, all my friends were up there kicking down doors in palaces and stuff, doing the fun stuff. And I kind of felt like I was missing out. So I came back from Iraq, still a little bit deflated with it all, but I was only, I think, years into my career. And you know, I’d already done the training, got the Bray, been to war, been to Norway. You know, I’ve ticked quite a few boxes in a short space of time. But my partner at the time then when I came back, uh, fell pregnant with my oldest daughter.

Mark Ormrod (18:06):

So I, I look at my life and I started reassessing things, thinking, you know, you squeeze quite a lot into that first couple of years, five years is the minimum time you have to serve. That was approaching. When you put your notes in it, you have to see our father 12 months anyway. So it kind of lined up white were our thought, I’m happy with what I’ve done. I’m only 21, 22, maybe at this time. So I’m young enough to start a new career, put my notes, then I’m going to be a farmer. Now we’ll do something different. So I put my notes into leave. Things didn’t turn out. I thought they would, you know, we separated quite soon after my life spiraled a little bit. I actually ended up retraining in South Africa as a bodyguard. I spent six weeks in Cape town training out there, came back home, started working as a nightclub doorman to try and earn some money. I was, I was staying on a friend’s sofa at the time cause I didn’t have anywhere to live and things just were going downhill if I could

Scott Luton (19:02):

Interject for a second. Uh, mark, uh, I think a lot of folks, I know when I exited active duty and then of course I wasn’t a combat veteran. I was the commando. I was at Lola D endless, but still I struggle with that transition to find, you know, what is next for me? What’s, what’s, what’s the opportunity. What’s the career was how do I pay bills? And I think a lot of veterans can relate to that. You know, we hear about it all the time. So, so you’re there between, it sounds like to me, your first service and you’ve had a relationship that didn’t work out and you’re dealing with that, you know, mental, um, challenge, you’re separated from the training and the structure you had in the Royal Marines. So that’s not there anymore. So you’re so you’re, and you’re sleeping at your friend’s house. So that that’s a quite a pivotal moment in your journey. Is that right? Yeah,

Mark Ormrod (19:48):

Absolutely think things are going downhill for me at that point because I am still living in Plymouth, constantly seeing all of the men that I served with, where they would come out, you know, my night club dorm and they’re out drinking, partying, talking about promotion courses, deployments, exercises, training. And I was in limbo. You know, I was trying to be enthusiastic and say, you know, I’ve, I’ve done this train now I’m going to be a bodyguard. I’m going to look after celebrities. You know what I thought body garden was when really I was just getting spat out and abuse by drunken nightclub goers and, and feeling worthless, sleeping on a friend’s sofa. And it just got to a point where I kind of, I guess I’ve crossed the line mentally. I remember being sat on the end of my, I was in a bed at this point.

Mark Ormrod (20:33):

I’d upgraded to a bed, sat on the end of this bed at like four o’clock in the morning, after a long night in this club thinking, what am I doing? You know, this, this isn’t panning out how I wanted it to, I had lost my identity. I’ve lost my sense of, you know, I know pride in myself and who I was and what I was doing. So I decided to rejoin the Marines. You know, I’d only been a civilian for about 12 months. There was no need for me to go through that training again, that year long training.

Scott Luton (21:00):

Where was it when you rejoined timeframe wise? What was that?

Mark Ormrod (21:03):

So I left in January, 2006 and I signed back up in February, 2007. Wow. Okay. So it’s just over a year. By the time I’d done all the paperwork and everything. And because I’d only been out for a year, I had to do a, an annual fitness test to annual shooting test, like a kind of a weapons hand and test to make sure I can handle a weapon safely and effectively. And I don’t know if this was a mandatory test or they did it on purpose for, for a bit of fun, but they put me in a CS gas chamber and I had to do all my nuclear, biological, chemical. I think they just do it to make fun of me really, but I don’t think it was mandatory, but yeah, four weeks after I signed back up, I was in uniform. Again. I be to pick up my career where I left off and I, and I, I just felt at home, I was back around good people who understood me that spoke my language, that I had the same mindset. And it, as bizarre as this may sound being a warm Marine, I felt safe. I felt safe and protected in that environment. Yep.

Scott Luton (22:04):

So let’s talk about, so you deploy to Afghanistan, I believe not toolong after you joined back up. Right? So before we were talking about your time there in Afghanistan and Christmas Eve, 2007, give us, uh, give us one or two individuals that you served with that, you know, you’ll be telling your, your great grandkids about,

Mark Ormrod (22:28):

Oh man, one in particular is my friend. He’s a, his name’s Gerald. We call him Villa. He supports us bit of the football club over here. Just, he’s just one of those dudes that if you have 20 people sitting on you he’d stand back to back of you and go down swinging no matter what do you know what I mean? Just a crazy guy. Doesn’t not a big guy, strong guy, not a fighter, but just crazy as hell, you know? And you know, that’s the guy that you want to, you want to be stood shoulder to shoulder up when it’s all going down. So he’s definitely one of them. Same as jargon. Yeah, my friend Yogan, but this dude was big and could fight like six foot, three big blonde muscly guy. And, uh, there was just, I was a load of guys, you know, the ones, you know, you know, I’ve got like, like friends now, like, like Ben and Sam, they were physical trainers in the Marines. I know that my life could go to complete chaos. And if I pick the phone up to those guys, they’ll get me sorted. You know, those are the kind of bonds start to create and serve them.

Scott Luton (23:31):

And w we could dedicate a whole series, a bet to, uh, talking about those relationships and, and, um, your, your comrades in arms and uniform. So let’s move to Afghanistan, but I wanna, I wanna make a really important point. And Kim would love for you to comment, you know, a lot of folks when they are down in the dumps, so to speak and they’re struggling, you know, some folks never come back right. And never come back the first time. But as our listeners are going to hear, not only did mark come back the first time, but he’s come roaring back a second time. And, and, and, and that is, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t really appreciate that. You know, that first come back, uh, in my prep work. How about you?

Kim Winter (24:12):

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, um, and, and, you know, I, wasn’t aware of that either mark, so thanks for sharing that, man. But yeah, it’s part of our executive coaching business. I’m dealing with a lot of execs all around the world, men and women pretty regularly. And inevitably, no matter what you’re talking about in business, the personal side comes in and, and most people have been through some degree of crisis, if not many, in my case, nearly losing my life on about a dozen occasions, which isn’t the whole story, but I don’t know why I bought it. It just keeps on happening. And, um, but a couple of covering them from a couple of those myself, my own personal journey. I’ve hit rock bottom a couple of times in my April decades. So we hear what you’re saying. Um, been, been to similar places, mark, and, uh, just really appreciate the fact that you were able to bounce back, but, you know, let let’s now hear what happened when the really the biggest arena happened in your life. And, uh, and give us a little bit of background about when things really changed

Mark Ormrod (25:09):

For you. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, you know, like, um, you said just now Scott, it wasn’t long after I rejoined that I deployed. So when I got to my unit, they were already in the early stages of predeployment training for Afghanistan or what was now called operation Herrick. And what, what struck me was that when I started this training, it was different to the, the training of the previous two. It was, it was longer for a start. It was more aggressive. It kind of seemed to have more of a, a niche down purpose. And you just got that feeling that the deployment was going to be very different, especially, you know, from what I experienced in Iraq. And I think I joined that unit March, 2007, and we deployed to Afghanistan on the 7th of September on operation Herrick seven for a six month tour. Then when I flew out, I initially went to a place called camp bastion, which I’m sure your Genser part of big air field, lots of logistics and everything.

Mark Ormrod (26:15):

Although the support happens from there, but you have to spend a couple of days. I just, uh, uh, climatize your body, you know, your kit and equipment works different in a desert as it would to a jungle, for example. So you have to prep it and get it all ready. And then, you know, you gotta run a few drills and training series to make sure that again, you can operate in that environment, the way the kits frat and the way your body’s now feeling in this heat and this dryness. So we spent about four or five days in camp bastion, and then myself and a bunch of the lads were thrown in the back of a Chinook. And we were flown out to a place called Fort opera and base Robinson, which was in the kind of Southern area of, of the Hellman province. Now our job, while we were, there was very similar to those that have gone before us.

Mark Ormrod (27:07):

And those that were there with us, we had an area of operations that we were responsible for. We had to go out into that area on foot. We had to protect the civilians in the villages. We had to disrupt enemy positions. We had to common skate or destroy your weapons, caches, gather intelligence, act on intelligence, you know, basically protect our area while also taking the fight to the enemy and looking after the people of Afghanistan. And we did it very well. You know, we’d been there about three, maybe three and a half months. We had been on countless numbers of these patrols. We had come into contact with the enemy, you know, all the time got into these firefights and never sustained a scratch in a three-month period. Not, not a single. And the only injuries we had, I think were a couple of guys fell off a wall and hurt their ankles.

Mark Ormrod (28:04):

And, uh, I think one might have had diarrhea and vomiting. And that, that was about as bad as it got for us. Now in the early hours of Christmas Eve, myself and half of our lads were caught up to the headquarters compound. And we were given a brief on what was to be our next foot patrol. Now, prior to this, you know, we had a mission, you know, the purpose, we had an objective, we’d go 2, 3, 4, 5 miles, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 hours at a time, go out, do what we had to do and come back. The idea of this patrol was that we were going to leave the, the rear entrance of our count in two sections with eight men in each section, one was going to go north, almost going to go south. We got told to patrol the immediate perimeter of the camp pushing no more than 300 meters from the permanent war.

Mark Ormrod (28:55):

Then these two sections of men would meet at the front entrance account. So now the opposite side, where we were going to secure the location, close things down and finish up for the day. So compared to what we’d been doing, this was extremely basic, low level stuff. No, no. Cause to concern, we had no intelligence that gave us any cause for concern, it was just basically got into groups, walk around the camp, come back in the front door, that’s it. So we got all our kit and equipment ready. And we went back up from our compound to the rear ranchers to camp and we got ready to leave. We got the green light there, the gate. I was second in command of the section and I went north, the other guys went south and we went out and we did what we were tasked to do, but six hours into it.

Mark Ormrod (29:44):

Now, both these sections fund themselves on the other side of the campus now at the front entrance, ready to close things down and finish up for the day. Um, the section that I was in happened to find ourselves on this high piece of ground, it’s probably the highest piece of ground for about a two mile radius called the north Fort slightly underneath our position was forward operating base Robinson. And then some way beneath that, just off to the side of the main doubt road that ran through the area was the other section we left with that. So because we’re on this high feature, we’re in a very advantageous position, tactically, because we can see everything around us, but it’s also a lot easier to fight going down a here than it is up. So we were given the task of protecting the other group while they went into camp, they would get behind the safety of the permanent wall.

Mark Ormrod (30:36):

They would protect us. And then we could peel down off this high feature and go back into cap. So we gave it our task. The session commander took his after the section and he started giving them five positions. And then I took my half of the section and about five minutes to my front, there was a, like a shallow bowl on the ground. Now, normally what you would do in this situation, if you were going farm on a patrol and you were stopping is you’d want to take cover, cover from view, cover from fire, get behind a building, a war, a tree, a rock, a shrub, wherever you can find, get down low and give the enemy the smallest possible opportunity to, to engage. So I thought, you know, five minutes to our front, this is that we’re bold. We’re up very high. Anyway, if we get in this bowl, get on our bellies, you’re not going to be able to see us and it’s going to make it very, very difficult.

Mark Ormrod (31:29):

If you do see us for you to engage us. So that for me at the time, given our environment was the best one protection that I could give myself and, and these lands. So we jumped in the boat, they all started taking out the five positions. I stood back and observed for a little bit and making sure that we were going through our SLPs and procedures, making sure everything was right, pick the position for myself. When they gave me the thumbs up, they were happy. And they’d been through everything you needed to go through. I did a few more checks. And then when I was happy, I started slowly walking over towards the position dissect of myself. Now when I got there and I went to get down to my stomach as I put my right knee on the floor, I now on a detonated, an improvised explosive device.

Scott Luton (32:20):

So bear with me, you know, it, it’s, it’s difficult to interview because it’s an experience that, you know, very few people ever have. So if I ask some very stupid questions, I’m gonna apologize upfront. But at what point in when, when I’ve, when I’ve cut myself from time to time, right? Initially, initially it’s like, ah, you know, no big deal. And then the times I’ve really cut it kind of dawns on me that, okay, I’ve got to, we’ve got to do something here. At what point did it, did it strike you that man, we’ve got to, you know, evac, evacuated. I need to get to a facility at what was that? How’d that mental process go?

Mark Ormrod (32:56):

Do you know? It’s um, so you mentioned the terrain in Afghanistan, right? It’s very Sandy, very dated, very dusty. So initially I had no idea what I had done and I thought we had come under attack, right? There was no pain. This huge dust cloud had been created from the exposure. So I couldn’t see anything. Okay. My adrenaline had spiked and I thought we’d been hit with a cause we’re up in this high feature, a more or rockets, come, come close by. We need to find where the enemy and neutralize the threat. Now I couldn’t see anything. So I had to wait until this dust cloud itself. So I could assess the situation and start trying to figure a way to get out of it, make sure that everyone’s safe. It wasn’t until that dust cloud settled, that I kind of looked down to where my legs should have been and, and saw the completely torn off and the knee down that the realization that, of what I had done, heck you know, and I knew quite quickly after I saw that we weren’t under attack.

Mark Ormrod (33:56):

I, I was the idiot that had stood on an improvised explosive device. And you know, I know it’s my arm very shortly after that, but the amount of, of blood and Clara and fluid just pouring out, you know, you instantly know like this is going to be a miracle if I get out of this, because you could almost feel your life force train. Now you getting very, very tired. If you’re just extremely exhausted, no pain, bizarrely enough, just like a, a really intense pins and needles. Very, very uncomfortable feeling, but not a painful one. And, uh, the, the thing that a lot of people struggle to understand is that despite all of that, you feel very relaxed. I don’t know why, you know, it’s the body’s way of dealing with things the adrenaline’s kicked in. You know, the body’s natural chemicals to fight to fight pain have kicked in, but there’s so much going on that you just can’t compute it.

Mark Ormrod (35:00):

If that makes sense. And it’s very surreal, but I know, and I always say this whenever I tell these stories, the professionalism of the guys that I was on the ground with the, the up, I can say this, but the balls of, of those guys still. Now, when I think about it, it just astounds me like the way they did what they did, because we will drill this right. A million times casually evacuations, Cassie backs. And some of them will always mess up. Right. But when you’ve got to do it for real, it’s insane how precise people can be. You know, before we got on a patrol, everyone’s got a predetermined responsibility in case this happens. One guy would get on the radio to call in the evacuation. The guy closest will get in his belly with a bayonet and start trying to mock a clear route for when the medic gets there.

Mark Ormrod (35:51):

There’ll be another guy that would be coordinating any loose bodies in a defensive position in case there’s a small arm attack follow up and everyone just did it. No one panicked, no one froze, no one got emotional and ran in to try and help me because we’re not trained to do that. We were trained to do the opposite and it was like a well-oiled machine, you know? And I, and I never truly, despite what I was looking at, never truly thought that they wouldn’t get me out of there. I knew they would. I knew they’d do whatever it took to get me out of that, you know? And it was an intense, intense, uh, period going through that.

Scott Luton (36:31):

It is tough. I really appreciate how you describe it because I think that really helps us that, you know, the, the 99.99, 9% of humanity that has never experienced anything really remotely similar. So I really appreciate that. It’s very, it paints up a stark visual. I want to move into, and then Kim I’ll pass the Baton to you. We’ll move into that, that recovery. And, and especially that, you know, the, the, those moments you had and then Kim, I’ll let you take it from here.

Kim Winter (36:58):

Yeah, sure. Thanks Scott. Oh, I’ve got to say mark. [inaudible] thanks so much for sharing that. It must be difficult, you know, from your perspective where you’re at net situation, just before I ask you about the recovery base, I mean, the odds of you surviving there must have been in single digit here, you lost two legs and an arm, the amount of fluid you must’ve lost. I mean, what, what were the, did they ever give you the odds?

Mark Ormrod (37:26):

Okay. I’ll tell you the very quick version of this one when the evacuation happens. So the medic got to me quite quickly because of our close to closer to the base, we had to put my foot onto my stomach. That was still kind of semi-detached on my right leg. I fell out the back of the vehicle that was evacuating me and the driver grabbed my femur bone and how me and the vehicle. And when I got to the helicopter landing site and the helicopter landed, I died. And when I got in the back of the helicopter, when they try to put an intravenous lines into my veins, they couldn’t because they had collapsed because of the blood loss. They put like an oxygen mask on me, which would, should have steamed up to show that I was breathing. And then they found me for a pollster.

Mark Ormrod (38:08):

Didn’t have one. They said, no, this guy’s got no, it wasn’t until one of the medics saw my eye flutter, which to them was assigned. My heart was still beating that they knew I was still alive. And so they tried to perform a procedure on me, which you won’t believe this. It only got cleared to be used three days prior to the system. It had never been used on a cashew in the field before. And basically if you can’t intravenous lines into somebody through their veins, they’re developed the new technique where you take a drill, a medical drill, and you drill into the casual, his tibia and fibia. And you get a line in that way that been proven to work in practice, big problem being, I had no tibia or fibia because I’ve just been completely destroyed by this IED. So these medics, and you’ve got to bear in mind as well, right?

Mark Ormrod (38:59):

It’s never been done before on a human costume in the field. It’s only been practiced in a calm ish, sterile clinical trained environment. Now we’re on the back of a Chinook helicopter that’s banking from left to right is trying to avoid RPGs Nikkei 47 far from the ground there’s dust and sand flying everywhere. There’s blood everywhere, feet and arms all over the, you know, limbs everywhere. And these guys are just like trying to take all this in and work on me. So amongst all that chaos, they decided that because they didn’t have a tibia or fibia, they would try and drill into my hip bone and get the fluids in that way. So they did it once and it didn’t work. They said this, the skin was too loose. So they tightened it. They drilled in again, they got the drill and the lines of bite.

Mark Ormrod (39:45):

They got fluids in. And they said like three minutes later, they were asking me questions. And I was coherently answering their questions. They lit, I literally was dead three minutes prior. And they had just hoped that this would work. It worked then a few minutes later, I was talking, I don’t remember any of it. Well, yeah, they said I was talking and they took me back to camp bastion while I started my tour. They took me to the field hospital, you know, obviously because it was a traumatic amputation. I was, everything was a mess. So they had to chop both legs in the arm, tidy everything up, bandage it up, minimize the risk of infection from the sand and the dark stabilize me and then fly me home, which they did on Christmas day. I got back about four o’clock in the morning. On Christmas day, hell of a Christmas present. I’ve had better Christmases.

Kim Winter (40:40):

You’re a miracle man. You made to be here. And so glad to have you. I mean, you went through that, I’m sure you had an enormous recovery period. What was, what was the Eureka moment that you had really, there’s all the amazing things that you’ve done ever since. I mean, you’ve been down before on the end of the bed and I’m out surfing and they need broke Calvin from that, but this was much bigger challenge. This was the biggest challenge most people would ever see in their lives. How did you get that Eureka moment to stay in what I’m going to fight? And I’m going to make things happen.

Mark Ormrod (41:16):

So three and a half weeks after I was injured. And I, you know, I was brought up the comas, took off intensive care, taken up to a single room where I was to regain my strength and, you know, just try and figure out what was going to do. Moving forward with my rehab. I got the old classical doctor come in and say, I’m sorry, mate. You’re never gonna walk again. You know, cause I was missing both my legs above the knee and my right arm above the elbow. And every joint you lose as an amputee makes your life a hundred times harder. He had never, he had been amputated people for over 30 years and I’d never met anybody who was just missing one leg above the knee that has success using four steaks. So he had to come in and say, look, you’ve got both flex missing and your dominant arm, I’m really sorry, but you’ve got zero chance of being out of a wheelchair, which hit me really hard, you know?

Mark Ormrod (42:05):

But about five days after that, some guy came to visit me who was injured in Iraq in 2005 and army guy. And he had lost both his legs above the knee. He walked in my room on postex. He told me about his story. He told me about his injuries and his incident and what he was doing at that point in his life and how we’ve gone from the hospital bed, where I was to the life that he was living. Now, I then got a laptop in my room. You know, he had both his arms, which makes things, you know, missing a darn all makes things a lot harder. But then I got a laptop in my room and I started Googling for somebody with injuries, more similar to mine. And I found a guy in America who was just out there dominating life, left independent of a wheelchair, could drive a car, traveled to wagon.

Mark Ormrod (42:53):

The zone was a motivational speaker. You know, doing all this stuff that I’ve thought, you know, I didn’t think I knew that I wanted to be doing, but had zero idea how I was going to achieve it because I was the UK fast, triple amputee. But that for me was the moment where the light bulb went off. And I thought, well, I understand what this doctor is saying, but he may not have met this guy that I’ve just met on the internet and seeing what he’s doing. You know, he’s an expert, no doubt, but he doesn’t know everything. And on what I’m seeing with my own eyes, I’ve met a guy who was coming in my room, Mr. Both his legs. I see a guy with three limbs missing on the net doing X, Y, and Zed. If they can do it, why can’t I do it? And, and that was my Eureka moment. I was like, okay, cool. This is, this is what we’re going to do. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna copy what these guys did. We’re gonna model their rehab and we’re going to get our life back. I

Kim Winter (43:49):

Said, I suppose nobody can really imagine what you went through. Mate. If you went through what you needed to get through the barriers you had the inspiration to go on and do incredible things. I mean, hope is a little bit about some of those objects moving forward. If you like, I don’t mean to diminish the, on that. You must have been juggling and now you must have gone down and come back to gap again so many times, but tell us some about some of the things you’ve been doing, because you’re your inspiration to others as incredible. I’ve been following you for a long time, as a say, and you’re just doing so many things to improve the lives of others, not just amputees and people who have been down and injured and, and vets, but so many people in every walk of life. Tell us about some of those big projects because you know, these things need to be,

Mark Ormrod (44:38):

Yeah. I mean, God, there’s so many to list. I don’t want to rattle on too much, but I’ll tell you why here’s a good example of how you can find the good in the bad. Okay. So I lost my white arm in the evenings in rehab. All the guys be on the PlayStation and the Xbox is, but I couldn’t do it. So I took the opportunity to hire a ghostwriter and white, my first book, you know, I spent my evening in rehab, dictating my stories to this guy who would then type them up. And we wrote a book, you know, hopefully just about the finish book, number two over 10 years later, but that’s an exciting project, but

Scott Luton (45:13):

Just really quick, that is man, man down. The one you wrote while you’re in the hospital, recovering. Wow.

Mark Ormrod (45:21):

Okay. Yeah. Which was fun, you know, so I thought I’d never get to do in my life. And you know, things got a plan. I got four or five books in me to, to carry on writing. So we’ll see how that goes. But I spent 10 years after I was discharged in 2010, working for the Royal Marines, charity, raising money for them to help members of the Royal Marines family, uh, injured, wounded, sick, you know, if any of the challenges that they had, I made a documentary. I’m looking at making a couple more of those as we go forward. I was fortunate enough to compete in the Invictus games, uh, in 2017 and 18 in Canada and Australia, when a bunch of medals and God loads, loads, and loads of little projects, you know, over the years in between. But the biggest one, which is about to pick up again now that hopefully COVID is, is tailing off, is turning this story into a movie. Um, we were supposed to start February. Literally. I think we were stopped two weeks before COVID was actually announced February of last year. And now finally, we’re getting around to, to being able to get into the studio and start filming. So that’s where we want next big focus.

Kim Winter (46:35):

And you do a lot of speaking. Mark, tell us, tell us a little bit about that. What are the sort of groups that you speak to because sure as hell, you don’t need to know much about your story to be inspired by it. That’s for sure.

Mark Ormrod (46:46):

Yeah. I mean, this is another thing that I never thought I’d get to do, but, um, I got asked to share my story about 11 years ago, uh, a military charity event, very unpracticed on re-hash to rule and it kind of resonated with people. So I polished it up a little bit. It got an agent and that’s taken me around the world. Now either at one end is corporates, you know, big thousand plus auditoriums full of people. And the other end is, is schools, you know, where you go in each suite to school children, some of the schools I’ve spoken out of, I’ve got six kids in them, that’s it? They’re not mainstream schools. Um, so yeah, sharing my story lessons. I don’t want to say advice, but any, any wisdom I can impart on people that are going through tough times and try and help them flip their mindset a little bit and then look at things differently.

Kim Winter (47:40):

Yeah. I was just going to say, I mean, you know, Stony people don’t really know that they’re alive and don’t really live a meaningful life as far as I can, as far as I’m concerned. So, uh, it’s such a good story to resonate to, to, to give people hope and give them some inspiration. I thought the top of the show of pre-show you were talking about a big project that you had off shore coming up on the next few weeks. And I just wanted to put a bit of a shout out here. It sounds like you’re saying that that their project was with the environment we’re living in at the moment it’s just been not entailed or canceled or postponed. All of a sudden you find yourself for the first time in quite a time with about a six to eight week gap. So I’m just going to say is if anybody’s interested in getting an inspirational speaker, I have a chat to you. I’m sure you’re going to be happy and talking to people and filling in that gap.

Mark Ormrod (48:30):

Yeah. I was just, I was supposed to film a TV show in, in South Korea, but you know, like you said, that’s not going ahead now, but the universe, if you want to call it that, we’ll always find a way to fill that gap. And coincidentally, my children last week broke up for summer from school. So I’ve got six weeks with them, so we can have some fun go on some adventures and, uh, use that time wisely.

Scott Luton (48:55):

I love that. And I want to echo what Kim shared to any of our listeners. You know, what a wonderful opportunity for mark to come speak to your team because tell you what he’s gone through, makes any other challenges you have in life in business, you name it pale in comparison to that. And that, that, that doesn’t even do it justice what’s. So what’s so interesting. Kim is, you know, when I stopped the interview, as, as, as mark was talking about kind of before he went back into the more rural, rural Marines and, and you know, he was, uh, he was, um, a doorman at a bar and he was sleeping on his friend’s couch. And we were talking about how that’s, uh, a tough time, man, mark, you raised Annie a hundred or a thousand fold and it come roaring back like you have now and have so much to give.

Scott Luton (49:42):

I mean, so much to give it it’s, it’s nothing short and coming back from death, frankly, as you laid out, uh, it is nothing short of amazing. All right. So folks, make sure you connect with mark. We’re going to have his, his contact information in the show notes, make it really easy. If for some reason the link doesn’t work or you have any other kind of issue reach out to us. You can reach out to amanda@supplychainnow.com or you can certainly reach out to Kim and his group and we’ll make sure we let you know how to do that here before we wrap. All right. So let’s, there’s folks listening to this interview, undoubtedly mark, and whether they’re veterans, whether they’re business leaders, whether they’re folks out of work, they’re dealing with the setbacks that come at us all in life. Uh, not, not many at that, at what you’ve gone through, of course, but what would be, what would be beyond what you shared already? What would be your message to that one person that was meant to hear it? Or would that be?

Mark Ormrod (50:35):

I always like to tell people it’s very much about your mindset. I think once you change your mindset, you change your life. And I always say that there’s opportunity in adversity and that is why I’ve been fortunate enough to do all the things that I’ve done over my life. But I think a lot of us are preconditioned that when we face adversity, we just default to the negative. You know why me? This isn’t fair. You know, I hate my life, but, and same as in business, you can’t look against a challenge in business. You don’t get the contract, you want it, or your employees leaves or whatever it is. Sometimes you just step back and you take that helicopter view, you know, and just take a breath, look down and go, okay, what’s good about this? Where am I opportunities in here? Do you know what I mean? Like I say, your employee leaves your business. You want to expect it. Okay. That sucks. They’re really good. What’s the opportunity. Right? I get to fill that role now with somebody who could potentially be better or did that role need to exist in the first place? Can I automate that role? Can I outsource it? You know, you just go take a breath, you know, chill, take the helicopter view and just look for the good and the bad.

Scott Luton (51:41):

Uh, so I hear that. I hear some what you’re implying or speaking to as you kind of peel off the emotional side of the setback. So you can look at it really practically and Kim, the other thing in, in a couple of conversations that we’ve had with mark and, and, and some of the moments in this interview, it seems like to me, that mark keeps a pretty healthy sense of humor and a sense of perspective. Is that what you became

Kim Winter (52:04):

Sure as hell. I mean, you know, you can almost be an Australian or New Zealand, and I certainly know how to take the, take the fun and the things. And, uh, I, I, I’m just staggered. I mean, I knew we were doing this today and I didn’t really get myself emotionally prepared for it. That really got you really got me going. I mean, the amount that you do for other people, and I hear what you’re saying, and it’s, there’s no better, there’s no better way to try and forget about yourself and your own problems than by giving to others. And I think we all share that and that resonates with a lot of people, but make terrible man respect you for what you’re doing. I’m really looking forward to meeting you. When I get to the UK, once we get this COVID stuff under control, a lot of good friends of mine up there that I’ll be coming to Plymouth and it’s pragmatist break. And, uh, and James Cook may have left Plymouth and done amazing things, but I’ll tell you what, uh, you know, Margo Mondelez is right up there with the heroes that I’ve, that I’ve inserted in life. They’re too sure. So really, really appreciate you joining us here today, man. Caring. Thanks you mate. Thank you.

Scott Luton (53:10):

I couldn’t say anything better than what Kim just shared. I completely echo that wholeheartedly. Mark, what a, I know an hour never does this. Never does this justice, but today certainly doesn’t do this any remote, uh, justice. So really appreciate you sharing your story. I appreciate how you’re what your mindset is like as you share that story, right? You’re a great storyteller, by the way, it has so much clarity and you almost can walk right with you as you go through your journey. And that’s the sign of a great unique storyteller. So, um, look forward to seeing your story more and maybe even on the silver screen soon, which is an awesome project. And I want to mention a couple of these charities that you, that you’re a part of, at least via LinkedIn, correct me if I’m wrong, but, but, uh, trustee and grenade, and, uh, you’re doing some executive coaching. You mentioned your work, uh, there with the Royal Marines charity. I mean, you just don’t stop and that’s a big part. It seems like of your secret for success as well.

Mark Ormrod (54:10):

Absolutely. And getting around good people, you know, those are all good people. They helped me that we’ve put similar values, morals, ethics, and that’s a big part of it too.

Scott Luton (54:21):

So, oh, tons of practical takeaway from this this little hour long with mark ormrod. So how can folks connect with you? So that’s what we want folks connecting with because so many other people can benefit from, from your testimony. So how can folks do that?

Mark Ormrod (54:38):

Uh, I’m on all the, the regular social media channels, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, uh, I’ve just tried Tik TOK, but that’s brutal. There’s some real brutal comments on that thing. Um, so I may, I may step away from that one, but also, you know, my web, my website, Michael moore.com information on that.

Scott Luton (54:58):

Wonderful. Uh, I’ll tell you my, uh, Kim on about you, but my life is better and my week is better. My month is better from having spent this last hour with mark about you.

Kim Winter (55:08):

Yeah, well, they, they say that you become a part of the people that are around you and that if I can take a piece of you with me, wherever I go from here, and then I’ll be, I’ll be proud and I’ll be thankful. So, uh, respect, you make respect for the service when you gave it and what the services that you’re now giving. So, uh, you know, say total respect

Scott Luton (55:29):

Agreed, agreed. So, uh, but really quick, we want to make sure we connect Kim here. So Kim CEO, the logistics executive group, you also have, so you’re doing a bunch of work globally. You and your team, the vodcast where we initially met is just keeps on rocking and rolling sock and folks connect with you.

Kim Winter (55:46):

Yeah, yeah, sure. Just, uh, all the usual places for a good fix executive.com. We’re pretty much global these days with our executive consulting and a corporate advisory and our executive search, any people now sports. So LinkedIn, we’re where we’re doing a lot on LinkedIn. So in winter on LinkedIn or logistics executive group, the hub of your supply chain, wonderful.

Scott Luton (56:08):

And we’ll make sure the links for both mark ormrod and Kim winter are in the show notes. So we encourage all to connect what an outstanding uplifting. We touched it. We told you it’s gonna be a special conversation and inspiring conversation. And one of the best parts about it, it puts other things in perspective, right? I already know, thanks to mark and what he’s shared here today. Some of the little nail bite and problems I had coming in via email and this ping and that ping, oh, that’s small potatoes. So a big, thanks to mark. Ormrod make sure y’all connect with him. Big, thanks to Kim winter. And of course the great people over at logistics executive group, big, thanks to you, our listeners, thanks for tuning in and, and walking with us through this, this, this journey we’re on that. We’re we meet fascinating people just like mark. Hey, if you’re a veteran and you’ve got a story, the tale reach out to us, you can find across social media, you can find us@supplychainnow.com reach out. We want to see if we can’t get you into our production schedule, but most importantly, if you do anything today, do good gift forward. Be the change, be light mark, mark ormrod. And on that note, we’ll see you next time right here at veteran voices. Thanks everybody.