It wasn’t my best career move. I didn’t think of the long-term consequences. SAS memoirs had already been published, but writing unsanctioned articles for a tabloid was pushing the boundaries too far. The articles duly appeared in the Daily Mirror over three days and they really ruffled the feathers of the Head Shed. It would have been fine to have a discreet article printed in The Times, but not to give the Regiment the mass-market treatment in a downmarket redtop like the Mirror – that was far too brash, far too in your face.
That’s when the ban came. I was in shock. I hadn’t expected this bolt out of the blue. I suddenly felt isolated and alone, cut off from the Regimental support system. Sure, I could meet up outside with my colleagues who’d also retired, but nothing can replace the feeling of pride and belonging when you go along to official Regimental functions. It’s like being part of a family. That was my therapy. That was my counselling, my talking cure.
As if the ban wasn’t bad enough, worse was to come. When it came to work, my phone suddenly stopped ringing. There was obviously an unofficial blacklist doing the rounds. I had it on good authority that the word went out from serving Ruperts to former colleagues who run all the firms in the private bodyguarding and security sectors. First banned, then blackballed! The final insult was when I heard on the grapevine that the Head Shed was looking for a way to take my Army pension off me. I was in serious financial difficulties. It felt like I’d just left the Regiment all over again. I was well and truly stressed. Was there a glimmer of light in this dark landscape? Well no, none at all.
26
A Living Hell
Worse was to come. Late one evening I was heading fast down a dual carriageway, eager to get home. The dual carriageway had been coned off to form a one-way system in both directions. Only the central set of cones separated you from oncoming traffic. As I was driving through this one-way system, a car approaching from the opposite direction suddenly swerved through the cones and came straight for me. I braced myself for the impact, locked my arms and turned the steering wheel hard left, just managing to avoid a head-on smash. There was an almighty ‘bang’ and a metal-on-metal screeching noise as he hit my offside door. The collision smashed in the doorframe which struck me on the head, nearly knocking me out.
The car rolled and came to rest on its roof in a ditch at the side of the road. I could feel the blood running down the side of my face as I released the seatbelt and crawled towards the passenger door. I couldn’t believe it. This was a rerun of Bosnia. I was even using the same method to struggle out of the vehicle, but this time I could feel more pain. I didn’t have the sleeping bags around me to cushion the impact. From my experience in Bosnia the fear of the vehicle bursting into flames returned, so I moved quickly to vacate the vehicle. As I collapsed into the ditch, blood pouring into my right eye, in my confused state I halfexpected to see an ambulance with a Red Crescent on it.
I was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital. I was experiencing pain and swelling in both knees and both ankles and there was a stiffness in my wrists and elbows – the result of bracing myself for the impact. The skin on my right forearm and knee was ripped to shreds and hanging off in places. I also had a deep laceration on the right side of the forehead. I was not in good shape.
Back in Hereford two days later my worst fears were confirmed by the consultant orthopaedic surgeon – I had ruptured both the cartilage and ligaments of my knees. I’d be out of action for weeks.
I’d have plenty of time on my hands, but this was the last thing I wanted. Laid up and immobilized with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and stare into space. Time to brood, time to think back to my Army days. Time to think about all the good mates I’d lost. And was still losing. My car crash couldn’t have happened at a more stressful moment. I had just heard on the Hereford grapevine that Nish, an old friend from B Squadron, had suffered a psychotic breakdown. He began to think his girlfriend was the devil and had stabbed her but thankfully hadn’t killed her.
Sure, the stress hits you when you first leave the Regiment, when you walk through those camp gates for the last time. That’s a huge change. Re-adjustment doesn’t come any bigger than that. But here’s a chilling statistic, this is the really devastating bit. The medics have studied squaddies who’ve committed suicide due to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The average time between a man leaving the Army and topping himself is thirteen years. That’s a helluva long time to feel bad. You’d think if they were going to end it all, they’d do it when they first retire from the Regiment, when they leave all their mates behind and at first their lives seem meaningless. You’d think the stress would fade with time. Everything else does – grief at losing a loved one, upset at a marriage breaking down. Time is the great healer, they say. Not true. If you’ve been in the Army, time is the great killer. The memories just fester over the years like ditchwater. They just get more and more stagnant, more and more stinking.
You’re climbing Everest when you leave the Army. As the years go by it gets harder, not easier. You’re toiling higher and higher up the mountain towards the danger area. Perhaps after thirteen years you reach the high-altitude death zone. At that point, for some, putting one foot in front of another becomes a huge effort. For them, the brain becomes more and more abnormal. Just like the climbers deprived of oxygen, their judgment becomes impaired, they become confused, they start to hallucinate. Their existence becomes a living hell. And just like the climbers, they don’t care if they live or die. They are deprived of normality. They just want to lie down and give up. Like the Everest mountaineers, these men are fighting fit. They are highly trained, highly experienced professionals. But something gives way. Being hit by PTSD can be just as deadly as an enemy bullet.
Nish had fitted into the timeframe. He had already been on a cocktail of anti-psychotic drugs for some months. They made him drowsy and lethargic. He never went out. He thought the whole world was against him. He was a prisoner in his own front room. How could Nish, a man who’d won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal, end up shuffling around with a vacant, spaced-out look on his face? Crack soldiers cracking up. That’s bad.
If you go to the Regimental plot in St Martin’s churchyard in Hereford you can see the headstones of Laba and all the others. At least they went out in a blaze of glory. Their deaths had a purpose, a meaning. For Nish it must have been like fighting the battle of Mirbat every single day of his life. Instead of hordes of Adoo charging at him, it was the demons of depression pouring across the plains towards him day after day after day. But the minute the battle’s over and the war is won, our soldiers are discarded and rejected. The MoD acts as if they’re somebody else’s problem then. The physically and mentally wounded, they’re a blot on society’s conscience. They’re kept hidden away, neglected and dismissed. They’re only wheeled out once a year on Armistice Day at the Cenotaph.
Sometimes even your family can’t help. I don’t know what clocks up more damage to your marriage – joining the SAS or leaving it. When you go in, your family never know when you are going to be off at a moment’s notice to some far-flung corner of the globe, how long you’ll be gone or whether you’ll ever come back. When you leave the SAS they have to cope with the aftermath of all that. When the guns fall silent, they can sound even noisier in your head. Your nearest and dearest have to cope with your mood swings, your drinking, your night sweats, the action-packed flashbacks playing on the big screen in your brain. You’re still lumping into the enemy, still chopping them down as if it were yesterday.