About Garry

"Garry Curtis is a solider, whom some might say is of misfortune, rather than the opposite. Yet, he is a man, who has lived not one but several lives in an existence of remarkable colour and variance. His story is frank and heartfelt, expressed in a street language that he knows intimately. From his earliest childhood memories to the career direction that shaped his livelihood, he expresses his emotions with intensity and sparkling wit. He has been in the front-line. He has worked behind the scenes. However, Garry is never the less that forthright and unafraid of pertinent invective. This superbly well-expressed work is both dramatic and tragic. It deals with life and death in equal measure and displays an energy that will fill you with laughter and hope."

His Life and Career

Garry is a rare breed of man, he is a man of high standards and for the most part a decent, caring lad who is always looking out for those around him. A once promising boxer, a former Royal Marines commando, an elite firefighter in the fire rescue unit in London and for a couple of decades as a close protection and a hostile environment consultant has been constantly putting himself in harms way to look after those persons he has been given the privilege to look after, as well as looking after others that have been in a bad place during some kind of attack. Many lives saved, as well as much death around him.

Family and Notable Events

A family man, a father of four beautiful, adoring children and his world is his grandson Ralph. Garry has been asked by so many people over the years to write a book and always pushed it to one side. However, after a breathtaking daring escape whilst held against his will in Libya 2011 by Colonel Gaddafi's loyalist gunmen, not only had Garry successfully escaped with the ITN media team, he then returned to carry out what could have been a daring rescue. A chain reaction of bad luck followed and lies as well as embarrassment from an individual caused Garry's world to come crashing down around him.

During a four-year period, the man that so many had entrusted their lives ran out of fight and almost succumbed to death, not only from injury in Afghanistan, which led to four huge surgeries where he contracted blood poisoning, but also the darkest place he has been—his own war. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, once you read what he has been through, he almost died at his own hand in an attempted suicide. Then the love of his life, along with dramas from a former lover in Ukraine, Garry's world comes crashing down. The pride of this man was so great and the financial ruin caused by just a very few and what he describes as his perfect storm, the culmination of all this, wreaked havoc and was the trigger for Garry to step down that dark road.

Comeback and Message

Garry, being Garry, is back stronger than ever and rebuilding his life. This is the powerful, no-warts, brutal truth of a sometimes larger-than-life, ordinary, down-to-earth guy some call a hero. Garry would always say, I am not a hero, it’s just a job, it’s just me, I love my job.

Charity Support

Garry supports mental health charities such as Rock2Recovery, a charity set up to support men, women, and families of the armed forces. Also the London Air Ambulance, as they flew Garry to hospital when he tried to commit suicide. Proceeds from "incoming" will go towards helping these charities help people all over the U.K.