Lee Buss-Blair grew up in Brighton in the 1970s, in a close-knit family with a strong military tradition. Both his parents served during the Second World War, his father in the Paratroop Regiment.
From an early age, he was set on joining the 17th/21st Lancers, the same regiment as his eldest brother.
I was never going to be anything else other than a serving member of one of the Armed Forces
By 16, he had joined the Junior Leaders Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps.
The reconnaissance units are ahead of the main battle tanks to assess enemy positions.
Close to the Iraqi front lines in lightly-armoured Scorpion vehicles, “you’re in an exposed area without a huge amount of protection,” Lee reflects. “I can’t remember the life expectancy they’d given us, but it wasn’t long.”
“I've got huge gaps in my memory of the Gulf War… it was all traumatic, you know, we saw some, you know, horrific things. We were part of something that resulted in lots of people losing their lives. But at the same time the Iraqis: we took a lot of prisoners because we were out the front. And a lot of the Iraqi soldiers, the conscripts, were proactively surrendering, and just anyone who felt anything other than pity for those men, you know, is clearly not an emotionally intelligent kind of person. I don't know how you could have felt anything other than pity for them. Poorly trained, sometimes barefoot, hungry… they were in a dreadful, dreadful state, and were so scared.”
“So it was, you know, obviously a very mentally and emotionally impactful experience.”