New Zealand Special Air Service

And then she sent through a list of things and they rejected every single one of them.

Greg is a former NZ SAS corporal and grew up in a family of service.

Today he joins the detail to talk about the hidden cost of fighting wars and what support exists for a contemporary veteran in New Zealand.

Now he has a condition sometimes called Breacher's Brain, which he says is the result of being consistently exposed to explosions.

They wrote a book together.

John Stevenson's piece was about abuses of the Geneva Convention by the New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan, which had been covered up.

We, in the end, he researched and researched impeccably and I saw vast amounts of material about it.

In the end, we did not go to the Defence Force or to the ministry or to the government itself for a response because the fear was that it was very, very likely we would be closed down.

So if you have listened to the episode, you'll know exactly who he is.

If you haven't, uh, he was a New Zealand, one of the youngest to ever become SAS selected at 18.

Uh, he had this incredible life, private contracting in Angola.

He's bought, bought helicopters to New Zealand, Black Hawks, all this sort of stuff.

I think they love that, you know, a Kiwi guy's having a crack at different things that resonate with so many different other Kiwis.

But, uh, just sort of all, you know, put it all out there.

Particularly like the SAS stuff is super interesting.

Uh, and so it's, it's been, yeah, it's been a great response and yeah, um, I think I'm getting a, a little bit more, um, sort of settled or, uh, you know, it's been easier to tell different stories to people.

I think it's fair to say my guest today is a national hero.

On December 9th, 2019, former NZSAS soldier Mark Law... led the daring and dangerous rescue mission to Whakaari White Island.

Following the island's eruption, Mark and his colleagues flew to the island.

They were able to provide comfort for the injured and managed to transport 12 victims home, two of which survived.

So we're going to have to do something about that.

And the NZSAS, which everyone knows is a real gem, very well respected.

My note from that case I did all those years ago about the soldier who wanted to write the book, NZSAS is hugely respected in Hereford, and that's underpowered as well.

It really should have double or triple the number of people.

So There are some big choices and some hard choices.