Nish and Collins both fit into that time frame. As does a third member of
Seven Troop, Tommy Shanks. Shanks, who was awarded the Military Medal during
his service in Oman, left the SAS pretty much as McNab joined in the
mid-Eighties, but he remained in Hereford, and McNab got to know him there.
Shanks was obsessive, a little repressed perhaps, a driven man. He retrained
as an anaesthetist, moved up north, and then in 1998 shot his ex-girlfriend
dead with two bursts in the back from a Kalashnikov. He is serving life.
“It’s not as if we saw it coming, but we weren’t surprised,” says McNab.
One study found that close on 50 per cent of 2 Para, the unit that probably
saw most action in the South Atlantic, exhibited some symptoms of
post-traumatic stress on their return, and 22 per cent were formally
diagnosed. In those days, Army culture militated against counselling, to say
the least. Worse, in the years after the Cold War, defence cuts meant that
such formal provision as existed to help with mental breakdown was lost,
principally “Ward 11”, the military psychiatric facility in
Woolwich. Other military hospitals were closed. “The Army would end up
paying the Priory £500 a day for a squaddie who might have a psychotic
illness to sit next to some Henrietta from Notting Hill Gate who’s had too
much Ecstasy. Facilities for ex-military,” claims McNab, “were better during
the war with Napoleon than they are now.”
Things are changing, however. The new military hospital in Selly Oak is being
expanded. On the front line, attitudes towards mental problems have become
more enlightened, partly a reflection of changes in wider society, partly
because of the necessity to retain experienced men. Soldiers are now
encouraged to discuss their feelings about an action as part of their
debrief afterwards. “Senior NCOs are sent on courses and taught to engage
with the Toms about what’s happened,” says McNab. “The culture is changing,
but it will take a long time. There’s still that, ‘F*** off, I’m not a
fruit.’” There are now 15 or more psychologists working in the Army. “The
stigma of talking about how you feel is going.”
Not before time. The Falklands was an intense conflict, but it was short, the
distinction between combatants and civilians was clear, and it was popular
at home. Iraq and Afghanistan are much messier, with far greater potential
for lasting trauma. “We get a sanitised view on TV here,” says McNab, “but
the lads out there are seeing it for real, and when they come back there
will be a proportion of them who think about it.”
During these new emotional debriefs, says McNab, “the NCO will say we had to
do this, we had to do that, they’ll just talk about what went on and why,
try to sort it our early, make it acceptable to talk it through.” And keep
it in the family, deal with the issues of fear, or horror, or guilt, in a
military context, because that is far preferable to someone repressing those
emotions for a decade, while meanwhile descending into spousal or alcohol
abuse, self-loathing and rage.
McNab has made several visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, as a journalist, as a
businessman with interests in the security sector, and as a morale booster
under MoD auspices. He still has friends in the Army, plus many ex-SAS
colleagues working in the private sector. He’s been out on patrol in
Helmand (Afghanistan) and Basra, admitting he misses the camaraderie of the
Army and loves being back with the boys. “I’m not an adrenalin junkie
though,” he says. “Look, I’m a f****** multimillionaire,
if I want to jump off El Capitan, I can.”
The vast majority of young infantrymen in Iraq and Afghanistan, McNab is keen
to emphasise, “are having a great time, and when they leave they’ll be fine.
They’re saving up for a three-year-old BMW when they get home. They’re young
lads, they’re from crap estates but they’re doing something with their
lives, they’re all bombed up, they’re aware of what the Army does and
they’re, ‘F****** hell, I want some of that.’” As an 18-year-old arriving in
Crossmaglen, fixing bayonets on the border, he says he was exactly the same.
What about the prospect of being killed? “You don’t think about getting
zapped. It’s the culture.”
The public still does not fully understand the scale of the fighting in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Time was, you could spend a career in the Army and never
fire your weapon in anger. Combat was reserved for Special Forces and other
elite troops. Now, on a tour of Helmand, a young soldier in a county
regiment will fire thousands of rounds. “Ten years ago for instance,” says
McNab, “house assaults were considered an SF black art, the ordinary infantry
never got anywhere near them. Now, the first man through the door is a
19-year-old rifleman.” One battalion just back from a tour was so
hyped up they had to be taken off for a fortnight’s adventure training to
stop them fighting civilians and other soldiers in their garrison town.
These young men will leave, and grow up, and have children, and they will
start to reflect on what they’ve seen. Most of them will process their
experiences phlegmatically, like McNab, like the other members of Seven
Troop (now variously a farmer, a teacher, something in the City, or out on
the security “circuit” in the Middle East). Some, without help, will turn
into the Nish Bruce and Frank Collins, and one or two perhaps even the Tommy
Shanks, of the future. “Society has to understand there will be a problem
and it’s worse because they know how to use a gun,” warns McNab. At least
two Iraq veterans in the United States have been on a killing spree. There
are no statistics for British post-Iraq/Afghanistan suicides. “The MoD
doesn’t exactly jump up and advertise it.”
The Army can only do so much with the resources available to it. Besides, it
is treading a fine line: the expression of normal human emotion in a war
zone must be contained. “You want these lads to put tin hats on and kill
people, they can’t think too much about it,” says McNab. “They can’t
hesitate.” The reabsorption of former soldiers into a prosaic,
peaceful society has always presented problems, and the soldiers of Iraq and
Afghanistan will be no different. “Give it about a decade, I reckon,” says
McNab. “It’s a time bomb.”
To order Seven Troop by Andy McNab, published by Bantam Press, for £18,
free p&p (RRP £20), call BooksFirst on 0870 1608080;
timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
