Edinburgh was followed by Newcastle, where I explained to Jacko’s father that his son hadn’t died in vain. Danny Jackson talked of the futility of `Blair’s wars’ and I talked of the unlimited liability of being a soldier and that his son wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else except fighting with his comrades in 3 PARA. The next stage of my journey took me to a new housing estate on the edge of the garrison town of Catterick. The new houses looked oddly out of place in comparison to the dilapidated condition of the surrounding dwellings that made up the rest of the Army estate. I parked my car opposite one of the new houses and wondered whether Lorena Budd was watching my arrival. At least she would be expecting me, unlike the men in suits who she had watched pull up outside the Budd residence two months previously. Then they had come to tell her of her husband’s death; then she had been pregnant with their second daughter. We sat in the living room and Lorena spoke of how she was coping with two young children: one who would never see her father again and her newborn daughter who would never have the chance to meet him.
Those killed or injured by bullets and shrapnel were the obvious casualties of the Battle Group. But there were also some who suffered from the more invisible scars of war. I do not believe that there was anyone who was untouched by their time in Afghanistan. The abnormality of combat had become the familiar and routine; on our return the converse was true. As we readjusted to the everyday normality of life in the UK, peacetime society seemed peculiarly alien. Initially I marvelled at life’s simple pleasures and sights. People going about their daily business, shopping, commuting to work or pushing their children along crowded high streets without fear for their security: all seemed incongruous compared to our recent experiences. At first I felt strangely naked without my pistol and the focus of a life that revolved round taking risk, making life-or-death decisions and having my kit packed ready for an instant deployment on the back of a Chinook. While nothing at home had changed, what we had been through was a life-forming event and for many of us the experience skewed our immediate world view. Our partners and families recognized the difference in us during the first few months; perhaps a slight edge to a relationship, preoccupation or hyper-arousal to certain smells and sounds, particularly a car back-firing or a door slamming. For most of us the process of normalization took several weeks. It was assisted by the initial decompression in Cyprus and an immediate period spent at work in barracks before heading off on leave. Public reflection was also an important aspect of coming to terms with what we had been through. A memorial service for the dead involving the families and veterans of previous 3 PARA battles and the presentation of campaign medals by the Prince of Wales all played their part. However, for some, the traumatic events of Helmand Province were embedded too deeply in their memory and they began to show symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Once described as shell shock, PTSD is an extremely complex subject. In simple terms it is an invisible injury of the mind when traumatic experiences remain trapped in a person’s memory. Recurring flashbacks, vivid dreams, aggression and dysfunctional behaviour at work and within relationships are some of the main symptoms. To some extent PTSD is the brain’s natural reaction to having witnessed life-threatening incidents and/or intense fear and horror. It can affect people differently and it is hard to assess who will suffer and who will remain unscathed. Many people experienced some of the milder symptoms on first returning from Afghanistan, but for most these abated within several weeks. But for a few of my soldiers, returning to a normal life brought no relief and we found ourselves having to address a problem that the military system at large was surprisingly unprepared to deal with. The situation was not helped by the fact that men who are paratroopers have a marked reluctance to let anyone know that they have a problem. We encouraged a culture of openness and understanding, which was helped by the closeness of the relationship between the Toms, SNCOs and officers in the battalion. I was adamant that there should be no stigma attached to it and had numerous discussions with several young soldiers who were profoundly affected by their experiences.
For one young Tom PTSD manifested itself in violence against family members and even complete strangers. It could be set off by the smallest thing: a domestic argument or a minor roadside altercation. In his case he did not throw the first punch, but when faced with a road rage incident during his leave he finished it viciously. With no previous history of violence, he knew he had a problem. His relationships with his girlfriend and family began to break down, he felt short-fused and unable to control his aggression. The soldier concerned sought help and was referred to the military’s Department of Community and Mental Health.
However, several of the Toms undergoing psychiatric treatment found it difficult to relate to therapists who had not shared their experiences. Over a fag and a brew, one of them asked me how they could possibly understand what he had been through when the clinician he was seeing had never flown into the Sangin Valley or seen his best mate being killed. Another was sent for treatment at a local branch of the Priory. When I went to visit him I didn’t doubt that the centre was doing its best for him, but I couldn’t help wondering what a young man who had risked life and limb for his country could have in common with the civilian patients. No doubt professional psychiatric treatment had a positive role to play in helping the relatively few cases of PTSD that we experienced. However, in the opinion of those who suffered, the best form of succour came from being among their mates who were the one body of people who could truly understand what they had lived through.
Within three months of returning from Afghanistan the majority of the battalion’s wounded had returned to work at 3 PARA or their parent units. The more seriously wounded continued to receive specialist inpatient care. Corporals Hale and Pearson left Selly Oak and moved to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court near Epsom in Surrey. Located in 85 acres of landscaped gardens, Headley Court is an old converted Elizabethan manor house purchased by the RAF after the Second World War to rehabilitate injured and seriously ill service personnel. The centre is equipped with a hydrotherapy pool, gyms and a prosthetics department with a focus on rehabilitating amputees and individuals with acquired brain and spinal injuries. Drinking tea with Stu Hale and Stu Pearson one afternoon in the centre’s refectory, I was struck by the fact that the place was working to its full capacity teaching broken young men to walk on prosthetic limbs and cope with the impact of serious head or back injuries. Designed to accommodate sixty-six patients, every bed space was occupied as the centre sought to deal with numerous casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq; the staff at Headley Court were doing an excellent job but they were clearly stretched.
On 11 January 2007 Paddy Caldwell moved to a specialist NHS spinal unit in Stanmore near London. Suffering from the second case of MRSA he had picked up in Selly Oak, he was put straight into isolation. The care he received at Stanmore was excellent and stood in stark contrast to the treatment he had received on Ward S4 where he had also caught pneumonia. Most importantly, the nursing staff began to educate him about coping with the injury caused by the bullet that had left him paralysed from the shoulders down. Moving to Stanmore meant that Paddy could start to look to a future beyond being confined to a hospital bed. However, the injured would first have to overcome a system that focused on discharging badly wounded servicemen. I was determined that people like Paddy should not be discharged; we were the ones who had broken men like him and I believed that we had a moral responsibility to look after them. Fortunately, it was a sentiment shared by the senior officers in the Army. However, aftercare of wounded soldiers was still orientated around a peacetime structure and was simply not geared up to deal with the level of casualties that were now being sustained routinely in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Consequently, getting what was right for the long-term wounded had to be driven by myself and Sergeant Major `Fez’ Ferrier, the 3 PARA Welfare Officer and it was a constant struggle.
The first hurdle was
convincing the policymakers to issue a dispensation to provide quarters for Paddy and Mel to live in because they weren’t married. After a succession of letters, e-mails and telephone calls, it was eventually agreed that the Army would house them when Paddy left hospital in April. Fez Ferrier gained authorization for them to move temporarily into small, cramped quarters until a larger house could be converted to accommodate Paddy’s disabilities. In the meantime Stanmore arranged for Paddy to take a number of weekend exeats. However, after spending six months in hospital, the first planned weekend was very nearly cancelled. There was no established system in place to cover the costs of transport, equipment and aftercare once a patient had left hospital, so no one was prepared to fund the £900 to pay for a carer to look after him for the weekend. The money was eventually found, but only after I had produced a cheque from my own bank account to cover the costs, which I think shamed someone into action.
Paddy and Mel eventually moved into the temporary quarters, but the planned conversion of a larger house stretched from two months into five due to numerous bureaucratic delays in authorizing and completing the necessary work. It meant Paddy was confined to living in the front room of their shabby temporary house. He was unable to take a shower or share a bed with his fiancée. It took hours for his carer to get Paddy up and dressed each morning and meant Mel was confined to her bedroom while the daily procedure of ablutions and dressing were completed, or if his urine bag happened to leak. Understandably, they were both visibly distressed and I promised once again to do my utmost to get things moving. After months of infections and tardy treatment in Selly Oak, this was the last thing they needed and it was beginning to put severe strain on their relationship. After having had to explain yet another delay to them for the fifth time, I had had enough of the system. I returned to my office and got on the phone to the welfare people for the umpteenth time. I warned them that if they didn’t finally get this sorted there was a chance that the issue might get into the press, which prompted someone to pull their finger out and resolve the delay.
The next day I read a newspaper article in which the MOD claimed that the Military Covenant regarding the nation’s moral obligation to look after its soldiers in return for risking life and limb to serve their country was not broken. I doubt whether the Whitehall mandarin who had made the statement had ever visited Paddy or people like Bombardier Ben Parkinson. Ben was the most badly injured of the forty-six men who had been wounded in Helmand. Since the break-up of the Battle Group at the end of the operation he had been looked after by his parent regiment. They, like us, struggled to get what was right for Ben and his family. The mine that Ben’s WMIK hit cost him both legs, as well as causing serious internal injuries and brain damage. However, the MOD compensation figure he was awarded was derisory. It was significantly less than the £450,000 awarded to an RAF civilian typist who had sustained a repetitive strain injury to a thumb from using a computer. The MOD’s defence of its compensation payments was based on the fact than men like Paddy Caldwell would receive war pensions as well as a lump sum payment. But it was a defence that ignored the full extent of the sacrifice men like them had made. The military career opportunities once open to them were over and so were the job opportunities that would once have been available to them outside the Army. Their plight was not lost on men like generals Richard Dannatt and David Richards who were doing their best behind the scenes to support them. However, they faced an uphill struggle with government officials and ministers who had little understanding of what it meant to risk all for the service of their nation.
Facing a poorly structured and under-resourced welfare system, 3 PARA set up its own charity called the Afghan Trust. The trust set out a charter of obligations for looking after those members of the battalion who had served in Afghanistan. The focus of the trust was to raise money to help look after the long-term wounded and the next of kin of those who lost their lives fighting in Helmand. Funds were generated through sponsored events, such as a charity freefall parachute jump with the Parachute Regiment’s Red Devils display team. Sponsored jumpers included Karin, Mark Wright’s mother Jem and his fiancée Gillian. Stu Pearson also participated, making his first parachute jump since losing his leg. A later jump with the Red Devils was also made by the Bishop of York which raised £50,000. We gave a number of charity presentations on 3 PARA’s tour in the City and at the Chelsea Pensioners’ Hospital in London which raised significant amounts of money. Among other things, the fund helped pay for Paddy Caldwell’s mobility vehicle, the conversion of a wounded officer’s car and donated money to a separate trust fund set up for Bryan Budd’s children.
The Afghan Trust was indicative of the fact that a vast proportion of welfare costs for injured servicemen are met by charities rather than through official funding. As well as having our own charity we also drew heavily on the support of the larger service charities, such as the Army Benevolent Fund, which was outstanding in the help that it gave to Paddy Caldwell.
Having to set up the Afghan Trust said much about the existence of a strange dichotomy that exists in the way this nation treats and regards its armed forces. On the one hand I was heartened and impressed by some of the responses we received from members of the public when they found out about what soldiers were going through in Afghanistan and the plight of the injured. Two articles in the Daily Telegraph about 3 PARA’s wounded generated over £20,000 in donations sent in by concerned readers. Prompted by Ben Parkinson’s story, other members of the public set up the Help for Heroes charity to raise millions of pounds to pay for a proper full-length swimming pool at Headley Court.
However, the remarkable outpouring of support contrasted starkly with acts of sheer ignorance and prejudice. Eight months after returning from Afghanistan, my soldiers were still being barred from nightclubs in Colchester on the basis that they were `squaddies’. One night in July, members of 1 Platoon were turned away from a club. When they explained that they were out to mark the anniversary of Damien Jackson’s death in Sangin, the bouncer told them to take their sob stories elsewhere. That same summer, eighty-three residents in a quiet leafy suburb in Leatherhead attempted to block a charity’s attempts to buy a house in their street. The house was to be converted for use as accommodation for families visiting soldiers undergoing treatment at Headley Court, but the local residents feared that it would reduce the value of their own homes. In November, reports appeared in the press that mothers at Leatherhead’s public swimming pool harangued injured servicemen from the centre who were using the pool to complete a rehabilitation session. Apparently, they complained that the wounded men had not paid to use the pool and the sight of their missing limbs was scaring their children.
Despite the tribulations of returning from Afghanistan, morale in the battalion remained sky-high and revealed the paradox of soldiering. Our experiences had taught us that there is no glamour in war and that it is a hard, dirty and brutal business. But at the same time people had enjoyed the exhilaration of being tested and the euphoria of success. It was something that bound us even more closely together than before, as the fraternity of being a band of brothers was reinforced by the experience of shared endeavour, adversity and collective grief. Modern conflicts are often described as essentially being a company commanders’ or a section commanders’ war, but the six months that we spent in Helmand defied definition by a particular level of participant. It was everybody’s war: every rank and professional trade came under fire and exchanged rounds with the enemy. It bred a corporate sense of group confidence and self-assurance that those who had not been part of a similar event would never completely understand. But it was still evident to outsiders; after visiting the battalion one senior officer remarked how he had seen the light of battle in the eyes of the men that he had spoken to.
I noticed it most when members of 3 PARA went to Buckingham Palace to receive their share of the thirty-two gallantry medals that had been awarded to the Battle Group. We made it a battalion and family event for al
l the recipients. Regardless of rank we collected in the officers’ mess of a nearby barracks, walked to the Palace together and returned there afterwards for lunch. I felt immense pride as the sovereign presented gallantry crosses and medals to the likes of Hugo Farmer, Giles Timms, Paddy Blair, Stu Giles, Stu Pearson, Karl Jackson and Pete McKinley. I also noticed how 3 PARA drew the awe and appreciation of scores of other civilians and military who were being invested as part of the New Year’s Honours List. It was a moving day, but tinged with sadness at the absence of two men who had not lived to receive the nation’s two highest decorations for gallantry. Corporal Bryan Budd’s Victoria Cross, awarded for his gallant lone charge against the Taliban, was collected by his widow, Lorena. Mark Wright’s parents and his fiancée made the long trip from Scotland to receive the George Cross awarded to Corporal Mark Wright, who had lost his life at Kajaki so that others might live. Both medals were invested in a private audience with the Queen.
The reputation and sense of collective identity of 3 PARA also had a tangible effect on the new members of the battalion who were keen to prove themselves, and the opportunity to do so would not be far away. Within months of their coming home rumours began to circulate that 3 PARA would be returning to Afghanistan in early 2008. When it was confirmed that we would redeploy with the rest of 16 Air Assault Brigade I was unsure how the battalion would take the news. However, when the official announcement came I noted a perceptible enthusiasm among all those who I spoke to and my mind turned to preparing the battalion to return to war. As the summer of 2007 drew to a close the battalion’s retraining was well under way. We had become rusty and the NCOs worked hard at reinforcing the important basics that bitter experience had taught us would keep people alive in combat. The new recruits to 3 PARA made great progress under the direction of their commanders and the more experienced Toms and I marvelled at the high turnover of young soldiers in the rifle companies. Many of those who had served in Afghanistan had been promoted, joined the senior support or D companies, and a few had since left the Army. Taking a straw poll of one of A Company’s platoons at the end of a live firing exercise in Wales, I noted that only 25 per cent of the Toms had served in Afghanistan.
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