'If I can do it, anyone can': Former Royal Marine Commando shares story in new memoir

A former Royal Marine Commando turned local business owner has today launched a book about his experiences on tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, the transition back to civilian life in Devon, and how surfing helped him through it all.

Adam Lison, 45, from Exmouth, near Exeter, grew up playing semi-professional rugby in Redditch, Worcestershire.

Aged just 17 he joined the Royal Marines after hearing stories from family friends who served overseas.

Now, through his new book, ‘A Royal Marine Commando in Iraq and Afghanistan: A Story of Surf, Sand and Combat’, he tells of his own defining tours, life-or-death decisions, and the “disorienting” transition back to civilian life at the end of it all.

Adam’s career with the Royal Marines spanned 22 years, during which time he served on multiple operations and saw active combat with all three Royal Marine units.

He spent time with the Fleet Protection Group - a unit he says looks after the British nuclear arsenal - and was later deployed to Afghanistan for the first time as part of the elite 45 Commando unit in 2002.

“At the very end of one of my training courses I was on a little bit of leave,” Adam said to Exeter Today.

“I was at a friend’s house watching Blade - the film with Wesley Snipes - when my friend’s mum rang us to turn on the news.

“As soon as we turned the channel we saw the second plane fly into the twin towers. That’s when I knew I was going to spend some time in Afghanistan.”

Across his two-decade-long career, Adam worked in harsh conditions across all kinds of terrain.

He spoke of how he fought on mountains at heights of over five thousand metres, carrying “full” kit and operating equipment while stationed in the Khost province of Afghanistan, and talked about times in Iraq he felt he “narrowly” avoided losing his life.

“During my second tour, in Iraq, we nearly got overrun by Saddam Hussein’s special squadron,” he said.

“Saddam Hussein sent his special forces - called the Republican Guard - out looking for British and American forces.

“My unit was sent in to set up a big landing zone for the SBS [Special Boat Service] to come in and take a surrender of about 10,000 of those troops up in Northern Iraq.

“The SBS were contacted before this could happen and they had to escape into Syria. As we were leaving, another unit of the Iraqi Republican Guard had lined out about 300 metres away and were in the process of rolling over our position.

“If the aircraft hadn’t have been where it was at the time, we would’ve been overrun and I wouldn’t be sat here.”

During a later tour in Afghanistan, as part of the British Armed Forces’ Operation Herrick, Adam faced enemy contact “pretty much every single day”.

“That was a very kinetic tour,” he explained.

“We were in sustained firefights 33 times for at least four hours at a time, I think, during that tour. There were some quite hairy moments from ambushes to multiple firing positions to having to engage and take the Taliban out when they were only 20 or 30 metres away from you.

“It was definitely a defining tour for sure.”

By the end of his career as a Royal Marine, Adam said it felt like he had “lost a lot of his cat lives”.

“Out of all the operational tours I’ve done, I’ve been blown up by IEDs [improvised explosive devices] 22 times,” he said.

“Two weeks before the end of my second-to-last tour I was blown up by an IED. It was off the back of an operation to clear the Taliban out of Helmand - a province in Afghanistan - when my vehicle went over an anti-tank mine and blew up.

“I got casualty evacuated out of there, but there were a bunch of other guys who got a lot more injured than I did. I just dislocated my wrist.

“It was kind of weird to go from the point of being blown up to then being back home in just 72 hours.”

After retiring from active combat, Adam became a physical training instructor at the Royal Marine’s Commando Training Centre in Lympstone.

He spent the next 11 years running training programmes and channelling his passion for water sports into organising adventure activity courses around the world.

The experience he gained during this period of his life drove him to start his own business, and so Mahara Jiujitsu in Exmouth was born.

“I really enjoyed during Brazilian jiujitsu as part of my PTI [physical training instructor] course,” Adam explained.

“When the waves weren’t good and I couldn’t surf, I was on the mat practicing jiujitsu.

“It was never my plan after leaving the military to run a full-time jiujitsu gym but that’s where I am now. I started in Lympstone Youth Hut and now I have my own place on Rolle Street in Exmouth.”

Adam first decided he’d write a book in 2022, after hearing others tell their stories on his podcast, ‘The Grumpy Surfer’, inspired him to share his own.

“The whole idea of the podcast was to tell people’s stories. I’ve got lots of friends that have done some really heroic - and pretty horrific - stuff that they wouldn’t normally tell anyone.

“I created this platform where I’d speak to not only Marines but also world champion surfers.

“Eventually, I thought ‘do you know what?’, my story is pretty unique as well.”

Adam kept a diary during his time in the military, from his start as a Marine up until his retirement as Sergeant. It’s the experiences he captured in these entries that shaped the course of his memoir.

“I’ve been on my tours, I’ve travelled around the world surfing - my book is about both the ups and downs.

“You know, it’s about the absurdities of war. It’s about what happens to you mentally when you go from combat to sitting in your parents' living room.

“I’m not an extraordinary person. I’m just an average guy, an average guy who has done some extraordinary things.

“The main thing I want people to take away from this book is that if I can do it, anybody can do it. I have this saying: think it, feel it, do it.

“If you think you can do it and you feel you can do it, all that’s left is to just do it. And that’s what I’ve done with this book.”

Adam Lison’s book ‘A Royal Marine Commando in Iraq and Afghanistan: A Story of Surf, Sand and Combat’, published by Pen and Sword Books, is available from today, October 30.

You can purchase a copy directly from Pen and Sword here, or pick up a copy at your nearest major bookstore.