Finding Peace

November 30, 2009 louhamilton

The soldiers are returning from war. The things they have seen, the comrades they have lost, have been enamelled onto their brains like armour plating. They are not the men they were. Sometimes the symptoms of distress take years to surface under a brutal battening down of the mental hatches. One man in his 80’s recently made a phone call to the ex-services’ mental health charity Combat Stress. He was clearly distraught, overrun by nightmares, disturbances and panic attacks. Had something happened he was asked? His wife had died a few months ago he replied. It was enough to unleash 60 years of suppressed memories. Now he was being haunted by his agonizing experiences during the Second World War. His feelings of terror had lain dormant until the pain of his wife’s death cracked open the wounds of war as powerfully as if it were yesterday. A few years ago I made a film about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in ex-service personnel. I filmed with ex-soldiers and their families for two years. It was the beginning of the Iraq war. We predicted it would be a few years before we would bear witness to the fallout of that. And sadly that prophecy was true, with the Afghan war claiming its victims too. But back then we were filming men who had fallen foul of the Falklands war, Northern Ireland, Bosnia (as peace keepers) and the first Gulf War. From the Falklands there were more people who had committed suicide since the war as a result of PTSD than had died during it. 25% of homeless people sleeping rough on the streets are ex-servicemen and they also make up the vast majority of inmates in our jails. A young man we filmed suffered at the hands of his father, a Para who had served in Northern Ireland. He had become a brutal drunk, unhinged and unpredictable. Eventually he took his own life leaving his family in tatters. We went with a group of ex-Paras to Arnhem in Holland for the annual commemoration of soldiers who had died at the battle there. Alcohol cloaked them like a heavy blanket to numb their own memories but their pain was palpable. As they stood erect with respect in their battalion berets, shoulder to shoulder with their comrades their hollow eyes hunted for peace. There was one man who stood strong amongst these men. He had beaten alcohol and drugs and the nightmares that left men feeling like they’ve been skinned alive. He had turned a corner and his mission was to turn round the lives of his desperate friends. He’d seen too many ex-servicemen lose the will to live, lose their wives, their families, their self-respect. He understood their torment but could see a way through. His was a simple act. He put himself at the end of the phone and he was there when they needed him, there when they stood on the edge of the abyss longing to jump off. He helps them to imagine a future where they can hold their heads high, where they can sleep peacefully at night, where they can turn a corner of a street and not fear the blast of a suicide bomber. He leads them with baby steps, gentle and soothing towards a place where they can dream freely and live safely.

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