The KM Media Group is running the Homes for Heroes campaign to raise £100,000 to help the Royal British Legion Industries charity expand its Centenary Village at Aylesford to provide yet more accommodation and a community centre for ex-servicemen and women in need.

We sought the advice of Lord Dannatt, former head of the Army, on why such support was so vital.

If there is one person uniquely qualified to tell us about the problems that ex-servicemen and women can face on their return to civilian life, it is the former head of the British Army, General the Lord Dannatt.

A former Kent schoolboy (he was educated at St Lawrence College in Ramsgate) Richard Dannatt entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst at 19 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Green Howards at 21.
He saw six tours of duty in Northern Ireland and earned the Military Cross for gallantry under fire during his second tour.

Later service took him to West Germany, Cyprus, Bosnia and Kosovo, which was accompanied by a steady rise through the ranks until on August 29, 2006, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff (CGS) – the head of the British Army – a post he held for three years until his retirement in 2009. As CGS he was ultimately responsible for Britain’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq during one of the most critical periods of our deployment there.

Lord Dannatt, who is founding presidents of RBLI’s Tommy Club, said: “That’s why I’m very grateful to KentOnline and its readers.

“Former military personnel can experience problems both as a result of having been in combat and also just from having served for an extended period of time in the Armed Forces.

“Let’s be clear. Not everyone is affected. The vast majority of those who serve in the Army, Navy and Air Force find their transition at the end of their service into civilian life and civilian employment extremely easy. In fact a lot of employers very much want to hire ex-service people, as ex-service people tend to be pretty focussed on doing a job and they are used to working in teams.”

“They are used to getting the job done as opposed to saying ‘It’s 5 o’clock, I’m going home now.’ So a lot of service people adapt very easily and bring very transferable skills.”

“But there are some for whom their experience in service – paricularly if they have been on active service – do struggle.

“They struggle for a variety of reasons. There is the overall issue of having lived and worked within a very ordered environment and then finding you are on your own much more.

“There’s also the element particularly for soldiers who have been deployed for example to Northern Ireland, Iraq or Afghanistan that they are used to being very alert and watchful. That sometimes is hard to switch off. And it can have a really negative effect on their mental health.

“Of course, another element is that with the advances in medical treatment on the battlefield, there are quite a number of soldiers who were injured – in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular – who suffered traumatic amputations with arms and legs blown off who would have died on the battlefield 25 years ago. Their lives are saved, but their lives become very different.”

“If you’ve lost your legs, you have to adjust to a different type of life. It’s not just the physical injury, but the mental strain as well.”

“So there’s really quite a raft of things that affect people.

“That is why the work done by RBLI at its village in Aylesford is so fantastic. Not only does it provide accommodation that meets the needs of veterans, but also it provides employment through Britain’s Bravest Manufacturing Company helping those injured back into work.”

Lord Dannatt said that he was lucky not to have been adversely affected by his own service, even though he had his share of horrifice encounters while in Northen Ireland.

He said: “We are all different, but this is the really key point.

“If you are someone who struggles with what you’ve seen, done, heard or smelt, and you know it’s affecting your mental health, then – and this is the culture we are trying to change – don’t just say I can hack it myself, but put your hand up and recognise that just in the same way as when we get a cold or flu or Covid, we need medical help.

“Poor mental health is another illness, so put your hand up and say, ‘Hey, I need help!’”

Lord Dannatt was confident the culture in the military had changed over the last 10 to 15 years and was still changing.

He said: “It is far more normal now for people to ask for – and receive – help.”

“Again back to RBLI at Aylesford, they are extremely good at recognising problems and giving the mental health support that is required. Often it can be as low-level as just having someone who understands, someone who can be sympathetic, someone who can help you talk it through.

“In the early days of the Iraq campaign we rolled out something called TRM – Trauma Risk Management. It was a scheme where a number of people in every unit that was deploying went on a short course to be trained to look out for their comrades who were having a difficult time with their mental health and to be trained to know how to open a conversation with them and just help them through it.

“Someone very close to me came back from a tour in Iraq and found he was deploying again quite quickly. He had been through some very difficult times on the first tour and his colleagues saw that he was not the same happy-go-lucky chap that he was before.

“A wise old Sergeant Major took him for a long walk on Salisbury Plain and actually talked it through – and it was some of the things he had seen and done and smelt that were causing really negative issues, but by talking it through, he was able to put the whole thing back in perspective.”

Lord Dannatt’s own son, Bertie, served as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards and did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

Lord Dannatt said “Help can be as low-level as that or indeed if it is more serious it will need properly trained professional intervention – and again RBLI is very good at that and makes that whole range of services available at Aylesford.”

“That is why it is so important to increase their capacity still further and why this campaign to raise £100,000 that the KM Media Group is doing is so wonderful.”

It is 14 years since Lord Dannatt left the Army. We asked if he were still haunted by the casualties the Army suffered on his watch.

He said: “When I was CGS we had two major operations – in Iraq and Afghanistan – running at the same time.

“I’m very conscious that we lost 179 of our people in Iraq and over 450 in Afghanistan – many of them during my watch.

“Of course it’s not just those who were killed, but those who suffered serious battlefield injuries and mental health injuries that you think about.”

“When I stood down as CGS on August 28, 2009, I couldn’t just walk away, I had to continue to do my best for those who were still serving – and for those who had served.”

For Lord Dannatt that involved becoming defence advisor to David Cameron’s shadow cabinet and throwing himself into supporting mlitary charities, including RBLI.

He added: “One feels a continuing responsibility to those whom one led and who served under me, to go on pressing their case to be looked after as best as they possibly can be.

“The Government says it wants this country to be the best country to be a veteran in.”

“Well that’s a great ambition – well done to the Government and to Johnny Mercer (Minister of State for Veterans Affairs) in particular. He pressed for the question to be included in the last census: Have you ever served in the regular or reserve forces? Until that point, we didn’t even know how many veterans we had in this country! (The answer is 1.8 million.)

“So the Government is doing more, and that is good, but I still feel the need to help all I can.

“If that means I am haunted – well haunted is a dramatic word – what I’m really saying is that I felt I could not walk away from those responsibilities and I feel that as strongly today as I did in 2009.”

The Sunday after his interview Lord Dannatt was due to return to his old regiment’s base in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where he was looking forward to meeting up again with some of the soldiers he had served with in Northern Ireland 50 years before.

He said: “We’ll chat and have a pint. That kind of camaraderie where you can talk about shared experiences is really important.

“It’s only people who have been through similar experiences to yourself who can really empathise.

“The sights, the sounds, the smells. Smelling something can be very evocative, bringing back to mind very clearly something that happened. After an explosion there’s always the unmistakable smell of cordite.”

Recently KentOnline reported the case of a former Royal Engineer named Andy, whose life spiralled out of control 20 years after his military service ended, when he accidently dug up the corpse of a cat in his garden and the smell of the decaying body immediately took him back to a mass grave he had come across in Bosnia.

Lord Dannitt said: “This is one of the big issues with mental health: there is something, it can be a sight or sound, it can be a smell, that acts as a trigger and can then start a downward spiral very quickly. That’s why it is important to recognise those triggers and put your hand up and ask for professional help.

“Too often people try to deal with it themselves. They start self-medicating with alcohol or drugs and that can often lead to a spiral downwards. Relationships start to break up. You lose your job. You lose your wife. You lose your home. You find yourself on the streets.”

“Sadly many also end up in the criminal justice system or think about taking their own lives, or even worse, actually do it.”

A recent study showed there is an increased propensity for people who have served on combat operations to take their own life, when compared with the average civilian cohort.

Lord Dannatt said: “That used not to be the case, but the figures have changed based on the experiences of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Shortly after being appointed to CGS, Lord Dannatt was at the centre of a controversy after he wrote to the Government arguing that the Army was not sufficiently resourced to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time.

We asked whether that meant the Government was responsible for the heightened level of casualties and after-war shock that the Army had suffered.

Lord Dannatt said: “The Army in 2002/2003 when the Iraq campaign started was equipped, trained and organised to conduct one large operation that would last no more than six months, or it was constructed to conduct one on-going campaign over an extended period of time.

“The premise on which the Government decided to lead a new NATO operation in the south of Afghanistan in 2006 was predicated on our having concluded our operations in Iraq by then, and the anticipation was that by 2006 we would have only between 1,000 and 1,500 soldiers still in Iraq.

“Actually we had 10,000 soldiers still there when we also started deploying to Afghanistan where we soon also had about 10,000.

“So the Army was doing much more work, to a much higher rate of business, than it was set up, trained, and equipped to do.

“That put a lot of pressure on our people. At the time I said the Army was running hot. When an engine is running hot, it needs lubrication and that lubrication was missing.”

“That means having the right equipment, the right welfare support, the right level of financial support and the right level of medical care when people became injured.

When we come together, we can achieve so much

“Fortunately the general public realised the Army needed help and there was an out-pouring of support for military charities. Eventually the Government realised too.

“I’m often asked in terms of welfare and medical support, whether the Government should do more. Of course it should do more, but the British way has always been for the public, private and charitable sectors to work together.

“When they do work together, then actually we can achieve much more – like the RBLI Centenary Village at Aylesford.

“The Government has a role to play, but so do private citizens through donating, and charities in coordinating everyone’s efforts

“When all these three elements come together, we can achieve so much more for the people that need our help.

“That’s why I’m very grateful to KentOnline and its readers for the help you have given and I hope will continue to give to the fabulous RBLI Centenary Village Homes for Heroes Appeal.”

To donate to Homes for Heroes, visit RBLI here.

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