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Hello, today we have a story worthy of some kind of military thriller,
one that's taken my guest around the globe via engineering,
explosives, royal protection, war zones, military intelligence and academia.
Dr.
Gareth Collett is a retired British Army Brigadier General and Engineer specialising in bomb disposal.
His 32-year military career involved tours around the world, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan,
where Gareth headed up massive operations to stop the spread of improvised explosive devices,
IEDs, and clear unexploded ordnance,
reducing casualties and helping displaced people to return home.
After retiring from the military,
he joined the University of Wales Trinity St David as a senior lecturer,
while also pursuing a PhD looking at the range of chemicals used in homemade explosives and their toxic impacts.
It was following his own diagnosis with bladder cancer in 2023 that Gareth started digging deeper,