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I never talk about shooting anybody, but I do acknowledge I was a member of the IRA, and as a member of the IRA, I obviously engaged in fighting back against the British army.

I experience for the American officers and soldiers that friendship which arises from having shared with them for a length of time dangers, sufferings, and both good and evil fortune.

I was a good soldier in the British Army. I was born in a very, very poor family. And I enlisted to escape hunger. But my officers were Scottish and they loved me. The Scots are good, you know.

My other brother-in-law died. He was a karate expert, then joined the army. The first time he saluted, he killed himself.

More than 55,000 men from Bomber Command lost their lives, of whom 38,000 were British. That's one in 10 of all the British servicemen lost in the Second World War. It beggars belief that there has not been some recognition for what they gave until now.

I was drafted when I was 17, and I spent two years, and I lost a friend in war.

My father was killed by a German mine, while I lost other relatives in Allied bombing attacks.

When they ran out of cadre men they gave me my very own platoon and said, 'Here are 63 men, try to keep as many of them alive as you possibly can.' That was one of the more harrowing experiences of my life.

The other thing that happened was my last military assignment - this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.

My war buddies, some were Americans, but some were Afghans. These were the guys that I fought alongside. We bled alongside each other; we mourned together. When I came home, these weren't people I could keep up with on Facebook.