Only a Soldier Knows

Ray Lane is a former commanding officer of the Irish Defence Force Ordnance School. On his retirement in 2018, he had been a member of the Irish Defence Forces for 45 years. He has served overseas in many missions with the UN, EU and NATO in Lebanon, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Somalia. He served as an expert witness on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1993), the United Nations Factfinding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (2009) and the Callanan Review (2011). More recently, he has been working with UNOPS (The United Nations Office for Project Services) in Ukraine advising on demining land to allow agriculture to return. He also works for a start-up company in UCG, Aquila Bioscience, which, by utilising revolutionary decontamination technology, creates products that protect individuals against harmful pathogens and biotoxins. He lives in Naas, Co. Kildare.