Bill Edwardes recounts his experience as a stretcher bearer during D Day after joining the army as an adventure seeking 16 year old that didn’t want to miss out on the action. Despite his age, Bill chose to train to become an infantryman; his mother and army officer both believed him to be mad but he enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, an injury forced him to switch battalions and become a stretch bearer six weeks before D Day, essentially wasting his nine months of training. It was ingrained in the stretcher bearers to be constantly moving between each casualty, causing Bill to begin feeling relieved when a person was dead as no time had to be wasted on them. When he was in between helping casualties and no longer distracted by his job, his fear and doubt would begin to fester but the fact people were relying on him kept him going. Unlike some of the other stretcher bearers, Bill was able to just get on with it, which he credits to his father also being a medic.  Bill felt satisfied with his contribution during D Day so left the army as soon as he was able; he had no regrets but still wanted to check up on some of the people he had helped. He later chose to return to the beaches of Normandy to see how the area had changed and the poignancy he felt being there again left him speechless. Bill had never experienced PTSD until he started doing battlefield tours for work and began to have nightmares about his time serving in the army. 

Brian Hough retells how he fought in Korea with the King's Regiment, his national service being his rare chance to see the world as well as what was planned for someone with a working class background. His regiment went through intensive training to prepare for the Korean War but Brian’s rough upbringing and his familiarity with discipline from school made it manageable.  Brian grew up with no hot water or upstairs electricity but that was nothing compared to the level of poverty he witnessed in Korea; the lack of sanitation, outdated technology and crowds of starving children made it seem like he'd gone back in time. Upon arriving at the trenches, he was apprehensive but got on with it due to being conditioned to believe everything would be okay if he followed his training and did what he was told.  After an invasion of the King’s Regiment's trenches, Brian saw hundreds of fiercely fanatical Chinese soldiers charging toward them, making hand to hand combat seem inevitable. Before Brian could panic, his commander bravely ordered artillery fire on the Chinese despite how close they were but miraculously none of the shells fell short and hit them. The King’s Regiment received battle honours for the role they played in bringing democracy to South Korea and Brian was amazed to see how quickly they then began advancing.

Prior to enlisting in 1942, Terry lived through the Birmingham Blitz. The Army wasn’t his first choice but fear of heights ruled out the RAF and he definitely didn’t want to work as a stoker in the Navy so the Army it was, where Terry became trained in a new weapon, the Flail Tank. The Flail Tank took a lot of getting used to. The visibility was poor and this was a big issue when Terry landed on Juno beach. Another problem was the tank chains being blown off by mines. Eventually, the tank became stranded and as Terry sought cover he stood on a mine. Thankfully, the mine was defective but no sooner had he survived this scrape when he encountered an anti-tank mine, again, somehow remaining unhurt. While repairing the tanks, Terry’s group suffered heavy losses in a German attack. From that point on the tank crews were under manned and Terry became a gunner. Terry shares his recollections of moving through France including an attack on an underground radar station, the Battle of Le Havre, the fight to take Carpiquet and how he thinks he made it through thanks to the cool, calm nature of his driver, Ben. Terry also recollects a local family they would spend time with, sharing food, singing songs and looking out for each other. Terry went back about 10 years ago and was able to find one of the children, now a woman in her fifties. Terry ended the war in Germany then spent 12 months in Palestine.