Some interesting research published this month in “The Street to Home Report” and Professor Ian Palmer’s paper profiling “The First 150 Ex-Service Personnel Seen By MAP” (Published in The Psychiatrist – TBC).
Ian, in addition to being Head of the Medical Assessment Programme for UK Veterans, is VA’s honorary Psychiatric Advisor.
The reports’ respective findings may have surprised the media, but there were no raised eyebrows at Veterans Aid.
Headline findings included:
“Amongst UK nationals 3% (36 people) were know to have served in the armed forces at some point.”
So much for the ‘thousands of veterans sleeping within a mile of The Cenotaph’ myth. Habeas Corpus we say!
We do have concerns – but they are not about numbers. They relate to the stereotype of ex-Service personnel that is being created by charities, the media, politicians and pressure groups.
Once upon a time Veterans (former soldiers, sailors and airmen) were regarded as robust, capable individuals whose service gave them an indefinable ‘something extra’.
Today the emerging picture of a Veteran in society is of someone tortured by PTSD, physically/mentally damaged, prone to alcoholism and quite likely to end up in prison or on the streets.
Paradoxically, the fictions are stronger than the facts and we continue to brief journalists, students and would-be film-makers who have bought into idea that military service today is sure fire way to end up on the road to ruin.
Fast forward to a time when a former soldier applies for a tenancy or a mortgage, is brought home to meet a girl or boyfriend’s parents; these new ‘credentials’ are hardly attractive!
People forget – or do not realise – that most men and women who leave the armed forces transit seamlessly to civilian life and flourish in it because of their military experiences.
Proportionality, it seems, is the first casualty of uninformed concern. With numbers reducing, and withdrawal from Afghanistan on the horizon, there will be more Veterans seeking homes and jobs in a society where both are hard to acquire and sustain.
It’s food for thought!
