Two former soldiers talk candidly about their battle to adjust to civilian life after the traumas of military service. Philip Buckingham reports

“IF I’D have put a foot wrong, I wouldn’t be here.” A veteran of 12 tours of Northern Ireland between 1975 and 1986, former RAF serviceman Keith Cooper is reflecting on an episode of his time there.

“I was searching for devices in a derelict house we suspected because it had a brand new doorbell,” he explains.

“I was going carefully up the stairs when someone shouted that it was rigged.”

Darlington man Mr Cooper says all this as if it was just part of the world that he found himself in – a world that most ‘civvies’ would find impossible to imagine.

But as Keith explains, for ex-servicemen, our world can be just as difficult to understand.

“The transformation, from military life to civilian life – it’s a massive challenge,” he says.

“When you’re coming from school the little things you need you pick up as you go – but most servicemen are going into the forces straight from school.

“You’re thrown into a new world and you’re forced to adapt.

“Then when you’ve done your time you’re thrown back into a whole other one, and it’s even stranger than when you first joined.”

This struggle to adapt can lead to significant problems.

Separate studies published this year by The Centre for Social Justice and the Royal British Legion both found that unemployment amongst veterans of working age is almost twice the national average – 11% compared to 6% within the general population.

“I was one of the lucky ones,” says Keith.

“My station manager got me a job when I came out, driving.

“About 11 years down the line, though, PTSD kicked in, that’s when the problems started – with redundancies... everything.”

Struggling to deal with the trauma he was experiencing as a result of his service – “to this day, I am petrified of staircases”, he says – Keith turned to alcohol as a form of self-medication.

“I’m lucky I’ve got a good wife”, he says.

“Why she’s still with me I’ll never know, after the last 28 years of hell I put her through.”

The devastating impact of PTSD is something that is familiar to another former serviceman.

Garreth Murrell was one of the first soldiers to go into Bosnia in 1992.

“During that tour I became Platoon Sergeant of the Reconnaissance Platoon,” he says.

“I also, unknowingly, got PTSD.”

It wasn’t for another decade, though, before it began to kick in.

“My world fell apart,” he says.

“I developed a stutter – I couldn’t speak a single sentence without stuttering – and I became paranoid.

“I was unable to work, I couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed, I didn’t eat, I didn’t shave, I didn’t wash - it was just awful.”

Having struggled for eight months, a chance encounter led Garreth to completely turn his life around.

“I met a friend who knew me before I’d done any operational duty – it was 17 years since I’d seen this person but he could tell that I was carrying a lot of baggage.

“He told me about NLP – Neuro-Linguistic Programming – which I’d never heard of.

“After one session, it had cleared it all up – cognitively I knew there’d been a change, as well as physically, and I walked into work the next day.”

Garreth is now a fully qualified NLP practitioner, and in 2010 set up the charity Veterans At Ease, based in Durham, which provides the service free of charge to veterans struggling with trauma.

“I thought to myself: hang on a minute, I could learn NLP, and I’ve served,” he explains.

“What people see in the therapist is someone who’s served, someone who’s had what they’ve got, and got better.”

The charity has helped over 100 people so far, and Garreth estimates that they have been successful in 94% of cases.

“Within the NHS it can take anywhere up to 18 months just to get assessed,” he adds.

“We don’t have a backlog, we don’t have a waiting list, and we’ve found that with this treatment, it doesn’t take long for trauma to drop out.”

As for Keith, he is now sober, and has set up a veterans’ group at Darlington’s NECA to help others who, like him, have struggled with alcohol abuse after leaving the forces.

The vast majority of people who leave the armed forces manage to adapt to civilian life with few problems.

But for those that do struggle there is plenty of help out there – including from ‘civvies’ like us, says Marcus Hawthorn, North East Area Manager for the RBL:

“If you know a veteran who is struggling I would urge you to approach them and encourage them to come forward and seek help.

“Help us help them.”

For any veterans’ welfare need or query, freephone the RBL contact centre on 0808-802-8080.

Contact details for Veterans At Ease can be found at veteransatease.org/contact-us.