“We’re all lucky, as it was a sh*t day at the office.”

That was how Paul “Tug” Hartley summed up Kajaki during our latest Veterans for Veterans podcast.
Direct, understated and delivered with the kind of dark humour that surfaced repeatedly throughout the recording. Joining him were Stu Pearson, Stuart Hale and Gary Hart, who reflected on 6 September 2006, when a patrol from 3 PARA entered an unrecorded minefield near Kajaki, Afghanistan. The incident claimed the life of Corporal Mark Wright GC and left several others with life-changing injuries.

What stood out throughout the conversation wasn’t just what happened that day, but how the men have lived with it ever since.

Before filming started, the conversation was much what you’d expect from a group of old mates catching up. Family, work, mutual friends and plenty of laughter filled the room long before the cameras started rolling.

When the discussion turned to Kajaki, one thing all four men agreed on was how ordinary the day had seemed at the start. As Stu Pearson recalled, there was nothing unusual or ominous about the mission. The task was simple: move down towards the hill, eliminate the targets and return. Operating as an individual sniper rather than in a pair, he had no reason to think the patrol would become one of the most well-known incidents of the Afghanistan campaign.

When the explosion came, Pearson’s first thought wasn’t that he had stepped on a mine. He genuinely believed he’d slipped. After letting go of his rifle and looking down, he immediately realised the seriousness of the situation.

Elsewhere on the patrol, the blast didn’t immediately signal disaster. Explosions weren’t uncommon and, at first, there was little reason to believe this was any different. It soon became clear, however, that the patrol had entered an unregistered minefield. Stuart Hale recalled realising what had happened and responding with a simple “Oh, for fuck’s sake”, a memory that still drew laughter around the table nearly twenty years later. Humour, often dark humour, remained a constant throughout the conversation.

As the discussion moved deeper into the events of the day, several of the men spoke openly about believing they might not leave the minefield alive. Tug was particularly candid about reaching the point where he believed they were all going to die. He described moving across the minefield towards the casualties and choosing to carry his bergen rather than use it for protection. Looking back, he explained that accepting death had “allowed me to be free and treat them properly”, shifting his focus entirely onto helping the injured men around him.

That mindset also explains one of the more unusual stories from the day. Knowing the importance of keeping casualties conscious and responsive, Tug encouraged the group to sing Happy Birthday to Prosser. It sounds surreal now, but in the moment it served a very practical purpose.

The conversation repeatedly returned to the contrast between the severity of the situation and the small human moments people remembered most clearly. For Stuart Hale, one of those moments had nothing to do with soldiering at all. As he waited for help, unsure what would happen next, the worst thought wasn’t about the injuries or the operation. It was that he might never get the chance to name his future child. He found himself repeatedly going over two names in his head: Alexander for a boy and Sophia for a girl.

Around 90 minutes after the initial explosion, the first Chinook arrived to begin the rescue effort. Gary Hart was aboard the RAF helicopter, watching events unfold from above. Without a winch, the aircraft had to get as close to the ground as possible, but the downwash from its rotors triggered another Soviet-era mine. The resulting explosion caused further casualties and inflicted the injuries that would ultimately claim the life of Corporal Mark Wright GC, who had been helping coordinate the rescue effort and shielding Sergeant Stu Pearson when the mine detonated.

For Stu Pearson, Gary Hart, Stu Hale and Tug Hartley, the loss of Mark Wright – and the events of that day – would shape the years that followed in very different ways.

For Tug, the years that followed brought challenges he never expected. He left the military much sooner than planned, struggled with PTSD and was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. At one point he sold his medals to put a deposit down on a house, something he now sees as a turning point that gave him purpose when he needed it most.

He also reflected on the reality of living with injuries that people couldn’t see. At one stage he found himself questioning whether things might have been easier had he lost an arm or a leg instead, a comment that highlighted a challenge familiar to many veterans living with psychological trauma.

For Gary Hart, the effects of Afghanistan didn’t end when deployment did. Kajaki came only days after another incident involving Commander Paddy Cordwell from the Five Platoon, and the impact followed him long after returning home. Over time, volunteering within the veteran community, building closer relationships with the men from Kajaki and meeting Mark Wright’s parents all became important parts of his recovery.

Stu Pearson spoke about the reality of adapting to life after losing his leg. It’s something he is reminded of every day, and while some triggers never affected him as expected, others arrived without warning. Years later, it wasn’t fireworks that brought memories flooding back, but the sound of a Chinook helicopter during a theatre performance.

Stuart Hale described a different experience. Although he acknowledged moments of emotional numbness in the years that followed, he credits much of his recovery to returning to Afghanistan. Like many veterans who revisit places tied to difficult memories, he expected some sort of emotional connection when he arrived. Instead, what struck him was how much the landscape had changed. The terrain had moved on and, standing there years later, he realised he could do the same.

The discussion also touched on grief and how differently people process it. Tug spoke about feeling disconnected from emotion at times, describing the deaths of loved ones almost as tasks to complete rather than experiences to process. Hale reflected on long periods of emotional numbness before eventually breaking down months after the incident. Even then, humour continued to surface,”I wonder if I’d still be able to make selection.” he recounts.

Throughout the recording, there was little interest in talking about heroism. Instead, the focus repeatedly returned to Corporal Mark Wright GC. Despite suffering catastrophic injuries himself, Mark continued directing others, maintaining morale and helping those around him until help arrived. He would later die from his wounds during the evacuation.

Nearly twenty years later, the bond between the men remains obvious. The memories haven’t gone away, but neither has the friendship, humour and support that has carried them through the years since.

As Tug put it:

“We’re all lucky, as it was a sh*t day at the office.”

It’s a characteristically understated way of describing a day that changed all of their lives.

Nearly twenty years on, the story of Kajaki continues to resonate far beyond those who were there. The incident has been studied within the military, immortalised in the 2014 film Kajaki and shared with new generations of soldiers and veterans. Yet for the soldiers that lived through it, its legacy remains far more personal. It lives on in the memory of Corporal Mark Wright GC, in the friendships forged through shared adversity and in the determination to ensure that what happened on 6 September 2006 is never forgotten.