Reflections on our Forgotten Heroes

by Tim Lynch

Most writers have day jobs. Mine is working for the Probation Service where I write the reports courts use to help determine what sentences offenders will be given. A lot of my time is spent with young men who have got into trouble because of drugs or alcohol or because they simply lack the skills to avoid getting into fights – ‘users, boozers and losers’ as one cynical ex-colleague used to put it.

Every now and again, though, there is a different story. Dave was one of them. He was convicted of charges of criminal damage after he smashed up the kitchen of his marital home. It was down as a ‘DV’ case – domestic violence. Always a serious concern.

He came into the interview and answered all my questions about what had happened calmly. He made no attempt to say he’d been provoked. It was his fault and his alone. As far as he was concerned they should lock him up. But there was something he wasn’t telling me. I knew from his wife’s witness statement that Dave had been in the army and I asked him about it. He agreed he’d been in but offered no more. I asked what unit. When he told me, I joked about the regiment’s nickname. He looked surprised that I knew it. I mentioned I’d been in the Army Air Corps – ‘teeny weeny airways’ as they called us. I started to ask about his service and scattered military jargon through the questions. Dave began to respond. Then the dam burst.

For twenty minutes he talked about his service, the good times he’d had, the pride he felt in his regiment. As he opened up, I moved the discussion towards his experiences on active service. Slowly, hesitantly, he began to describe the freezing night he and a friend had been on duty. They had been there for hours and were chilled to the bone. Then a shot rang out. The round took off the top of his friend’s head. Dave sat holding him as he died. As the blood dripped over Dave’s hands, ‘All I could think of was that my hands felt warm at last. What sort of person thinks like that?’

We talked about how overwhelming experiences sometimes make the brain focus on small things but for Dave, everything he believed about himself changed that night. How could anyone else ever love a man who could think that way about someone he cared about? What sort of monster was he? From then on, his time in the forces was like a daydream. He left a year later.

While he was away, his wife had lived independently, learning to do all the jobs he had done. Paying bills, changing plugs, decorating the house, all the little jobs he had done for her before. Unable to find a steady job, they had lived on her income. Unemployed, feeling redundant in the home and barely able to cope with the sense of shame he felt at being unable to ‘hack it’ in the army, Dave had turned to drink. Then, one night just after the anniversary of his friend’s death, something snapped. Convinced he did not deserve the love of his family, Dave drank. Inside, he raged against what had happened and at how it had lost him everything he believed in. Unable to express what he was feeling, he turned and punched the door. The pain felt good. It felt like punishment. He kicked the fridge. He smashed the plates. His wife, terrified, called the police. And now he was here.

I sat quietly as he cried. After a few minutes, he looked up. ‘I’ve never told anybody about it before’, he said. ‘How do you tell someone you love just what sort of person you really are?’

I was able to propose a sentence that would help Dave access the help he would need to try to rebuild his life, but I watched the recent Panorama documentary by Colonel Tim Collins about the hidden casualties of war and I thought of Dave.

And I thought of Andy, the young ex-medic turned chaotic drug user because he dreaded what dreams normal sleep might bring. I thought of Jason, the ex-Marine found drunk in a car lodged in a fence over a long drop. The police reported that it could have been a fatal accident. ‘That was the idea’, he told me.

I thought about the ‘users, boozers and losers’ who pass through the courts every day, many convinced that society has failed them and how they rage against it for letting them down. I thought, too, of those who pass through in numbers that have never been counted. Men and women whose anger is turned inwards at themselves and whose main concern is how much they have let everyone else down.

Not all veterans have such serious problems making the adjustment to civilian life, but almost all find the going difficult at first. Some manage better than others. What Dave did was inexcusable. He told me so himself. But neither of us were looking to excuse his behaviour, we needed to explain it so that he could understand why he did what he did and find the skills to avoid it happening again.

They say old soldiers never die. Perhaps not, but young ones certainly do. At a time when most young people believe they are immortal, some of our teenagers come face to face with death and all that it means. When they struggle to cope, they are dismissed as somehow weak and abandoned to their fate. They end up like Dave or Andy or Jason. The lucky ones hit bottom and bounce. Far too many don’t.

What sort of soldier goes to pieces when a friend is killed in front of him? Let’s put it another way, what human being doesn’t?

Tim Lynch is the author of Courage Under Fire, published by Elliott & Thompson in conjunction with Combat Stress.

Combat Stress is the leading charity specialising in the care of British Veterans who have been profoundly traumatised by harrowing experiences during their Service career. Last year alone, they received 1,257 new referrals, bringing the number of ex-Service men and women in their care to approximately 4,200. They look after Veterans of every campaign that British Forces have been involved in since the Second World War. This includes over 300 of recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To view the Panorama episode, click here (available until 9:59pm, Wednesday 26th February)

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