After
Chapter 12
And then nothing.
I looked around and continued to walk down the street. As I neared the corner I see my mates stop and cover me across. At the other side I stop, turn around and watch them cross over the road. My mind starts its inventory routine as we headed to our destination.
'Couple of beers then a Curry Wurst (Curry Wurst being a type of sausage) and Chips before heading out again' I tell myself, I look around. The other guys are in a perfect brick formation but something is nagging at me. I check around again trying to work out what is bugging me.
A few hundred meters down the road I see where we are heading for.
After returning back to Germany we found that our usual bar (The City Bar) had been closed down and turned into a shoe shop so we were trying out alternative venues.
'What was missing', I kept asking myself? It was like an itch that I couldn't scratch and it was driving me mad.
After getting the first round of drinks in I said, "We've done it again".
"Done what?", asked Martin (Lucas), who was one of my 'original' mates in Milan platoon.
"We've just patrolled from camp to here"!
"Bullshit", said Kevin (Lunt).
"You know the thing that's fucking funny though", I continued?
"Enlighten us, Einstein", said Mick (Lambert) who was another 'original' mate from Milan platoon.
"I wasn't even in the same platoon as you in Ireland and none of you were in the same brick".
"Guess that means it's my round then. Drink up", was Mick's reply.
"Thought you'd never put your hand in your pocket", said Kev.
"No, that's Martin you're thinking of", said I.
I think at this stage we'd been back in Germany for about a month.
Martin had gotten engaged and I had been asked to be his best man.
Conversely I'd broken up with my girlfriend. She'd been an anchor and a link to normality.
When I had called her from Belfast I didn't do much of the talking. She would ask if "Anything (had) happened", and I would always say "no, nothing going on at the moment". In fact, I didn't even tell her that I'd been hospitalised. I had a lot of explaining to do when I returned and I guess my inability to talk about my experiences may have contributed to our breaking up.
Not long after returning we had all been confined to camp. Normally this restriction came about because a fight had happened 'down town'. However in this case it was because some 'drunken' QLR guys had stopped a taxi and carried out a vehicle search before allowing it on its way.
Apparently it was a text book VCP with one person covering the occupants who had been made to step out of the car while another member of the VCP had made the driver of the taxi remove the contents of the boot. All well and good were this being carried out in Northern Ireland but something of a 'problem' doing it in West Germany!
Nevertheless no charges were laid; we were all told to "stop fucking around".
And still nothing at all.
We received no debrief. We had been 'hard wired' to do a job but there was no way to 're-wire' our brains.
Had I changed?
Yes, you bet I'd changed. At some stage back in April (1987) a 'new' me had appeared. The problem was I didn't know it. It was only when a girl called Anita out of a group we hung around with said I had changed that I really started to think about it.
"I really used to fancy you, but you are not the same person you once were", she exclaimed one day out of the blue. I gave her a 'whatever' type of reply. But out of everything that had happened that year this one statement 'hurt' me the most. Before I was always talking, laughing and having fun. When I took a long look at myself I saw that I just sat watching, no longer talking, just observing the people around me looking, always looking, searching for that elusive gunman.
Bits and pieces of my experiences haunt me. I often lie awake thinking of things like would I have pulled the trigger when I was injured (I always come up with the same answer, yes).
What haunts me the most are the events of April 7th 1987. I know that it wasn't my fault. No action or inaction of mine caused the events to proceed as they did. I just hate 'what ifs'! What if I was placed looking in the other direction, what if I'd given Terry my field dressing, what if the shooter had shot those little girls?
20 years after the events in Belfast I managed to track down an old army pal Stuart 'Aussie' Munro.
Stu and myself met up (and now go on family holidays together) and on our first catch up we talked late into the night. After several very large
drinks/bottles of wine our conversation turned to Northern Ireland. It was interesting to me to hear Stu's slant on the events of 1987 in particular the shooting which cost Smiler a leg. In his 'A Company' turf they'd heard that Ben and Smiler were having a smoke and that this contributed to the incident, for example. (A year or so after this was first published on line I received a message. It was from Smiler. I was so happy to hear from him. At around the same time I started writing my book he had started trying to work out what actually happened on that day. He told me that he been having a smoke but could remember nothing about getting shot. The message exchange finished with once he was ready he'd send me a friend request on Facebook but he still had things to sort out. Over a year later I received and accepted gratefully his request.)
While on a commissioning course in 2008 I had to give a presentation/speech. I decided to give one based on the events recounted in 'Have you heard the one about Finbarr McKenna'. One of the instructors, a Captain Black (honestly this was his name), knew about the Finbarr McKenna attack and some of the details leading up to Finbarr's failed attack on RUC Springfield Road. This was due to Captain Black's counter
terrorism training in the New Zealand Army. After my presentation was over we talked about this event. He informed me that Finbar was a low ranking member of PIRA and little more than a courier. Finbarr was moving munitions between locations when he saw the patrol entering the RUC station. He decided that this was a good opportunity to 'prove' himself and took it upon himself to arm one the bombs he was carrying with the intent of throwing it into the station. It was his inexperience with the bombs that caused him to detonate it in his hands. A chilling thought should the bomb have been in the hands of a more experienced terrorist.
It was also after 20-odd years that I confronted some of my own personal demons and in late 2008 I was finally diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Having mates who saw what I saw and experienced similar things has been helpful. I still struggle to talk openly about my experiences but writing this book has assisted.
Do I feel a loss?
No! I wouldn't change a thing. To do so would change who I am now.
As a young child I went to Sunday School. At the back of the church were the usual Christian posters. One always had me puzzled. It depicted an African man planting crops in a drought ravaged field and had the phrase written across it 'Man Is Not A Man Until He Has Known Hardship'. Northern Ireland gave me a 'cross' to carry. At times it can be a heavy burden. But at last I think I understand that poster.
It still doesn't stop the 'what ifs', though. I just have to believe, as a matter of 'faith', that all my experiences during 1987 were really nobody's
fault, even if I no longer have any faith! What if...
On the Combat Stress web site the following is stated:
"Since the end of World War 2, the vast majority of the British People have known nothing but peace. But it's been a very different story for the men and women of our armed forces. Time and again, they have been in the front line defending Britain's interests. In Brunei, Borneo, Indonesia, Malaya, the Falklands and the Gulf. More recently, they have played a central peace keeping role in the Balkans, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And closer to home, many thousands have been involved during the thirty year long campaign in Northern Ireland, an operation that has perhaps been the most difficult and dangerous of all".
'Loyally I Serve' was the regimental motto. "Loyally I still serve" is my silent reply.
The End
Chapter 12
And then nothing.
I looked around and continued to walk down the street. As I neared the corner I see my mates stop and cover me across. At the other side I stop, turn around and watch them cross over the road. My mind starts its inventory routine as we headed to our destination.
'Couple of beers then a Curry Wurst (Curry Wurst being a type of sausage) and Chips before heading out again' I tell myself, I look around. The other guys are in a perfect brick formation but something is nagging at me. I check around again trying to work out what is bugging me.
A few hundred meters down the road I see where we are heading for.
After returning back to Germany we found that our usual bar (The City Bar) had been closed down and turned into a shoe shop so we were trying out alternative venues.
'What was missing', I kept asking myself? It was like an itch that I couldn't scratch and it was driving me mad.
After getting the first round of drinks in I said, "We've done it again".
"Done what?", asked Martin (Lucas), who was one of my 'original' mates in Milan platoon.
"We've just patrolled from camp to here"!
"Bullshit", said Kevin (Lunt).
"You know the thing that's fucking funny though", I continued?
"Enlighten us, Einstein", said Mick (Lambert) who was another 'original' mate from Milan platoon.
"I wasn't even in the same platoon as you in Ireland and none of you were in the same brick".
"Guess that means it's my round then. Drink up", was Mick's reply.
"Thought you'd never put your hand in your pocket", said Kev.
"No, that's Martin you're thinking of", said I.
I think at this stage we'd been back in Germany for about a month.
Martin had gotten engaged and I had been asked to be his best man.
Conversely I'd broken up with my girlfriend. She'd been an anchor and a link to normality.
When I had called her from Belfast I didn't do much of the talking. She would ask if "Anything (had) happened", and I would always say "no, nothing going on at the moment". In fact, I didn't even tell her that I'd been hospitalised. I had a lot of explaining to do when I returned and I guess my inability to talk about my experiences may have contributed to our breaking up.
Not long after returning we had all been confined to camp. Normally this restriction came about because a fight had happened 'down town'. However in this case it was because some 'drunken' QLR guys had stopped a taxi and carried out a vehicle search before allowing it on its way.
Apparently it was a text book VCP with one person covering the occupants who had been made to step out of the car while another member of the VCP had made the driver of the taxi remove the contents of the boot. All well and good were this being carried out in Northern Ireland but something of a 'problem' doing it in West Germany!
Nevertheless no charges were laid; we were all told to "stop fucking around".
And still nothing at all.
We received no debrief. We had been 'hard wired' to do a job but there was no way to 're-wire' our brains.
Had I changed?
Yes, you bet I'd changed. At some stage back in April (1987) a 'new' me had appeared. The problem was I didn't know it. It was only when a girl called Anita out of a group we hung around with said I had changed that I really started to think about it.
"I really used to fancy you, but you are not the same person you once were", she exclaimed one day out of the blue. I gave her a 'whatever' type of reply. But out of everything that had happened that year this one statement 'hurt' me the most. Before I was always talking, laughing and having fun. When I took a long look at myself I saw that I just sat watching, no longer talking, just observing the people around me looking, always looking, searching for that elusive gunman.
Bits and pieces of my experiences haunt me. I often lie awake thinking of things like would I have pulled the trigger when I was injured (I always come up with the same answer, yes).
What haunts me the most are the events of April 7th 1987. I know that it wasn't my fault. No action or inaction of mine caused the events to proceed as they did. I just hate 'what ifs'! What if I was placed looking in the other direction, what if I'd given Terry my field dressing, what if the shooter had shot those little girls?
20 years after the events in Belfast I managed to track down an old army pal Stuart 'Aussie' Munro.
Stu and myself met up (and now go on family holidays together) and on our first catch up we talked late into the night. After several very large
drinks/bottles of wine our conversation turned to Northern Ireland. It was interesting to me to hear Stu's slant on the events of 1987 in particular the shooting which cost Smiler a leg. In his 'A Company' turf they'd heard that Ben and Smiler were having a smoke and that this contributed to the incident, for example. (A year or so after this was first published on line I received a message. It was from Smiler. I was so happy to hear from him. At around the same time I started writing my book he had started trying to work out what actually happened on that day. He told me that he been having a smoke but could remember nothing about getting shot. The message exchange finished with once he was ready he'd send me a friend request on Facebook but he still had things to sort out. Over a year later I received and accepted gratefully his request.)
While on a commissioning course in 2008 I had to give a presentation/speech. I decided to give one based on the events recounted in 'Have you heard the one about Finbarr McKenna'. One of the instructors, a Captain Black (honestly this was his name), knew about the Finbarr McKenna attack and some of the details leading up to Finbarr's failed attack on RUC Springfield Road. This was due to Captain Black's counter
terrorism training in the New Zealand Army. After my presentation was over we talked about this event. He informed me that Finbar was a low ranking member of PIRA and little more than a courier. Finbarr was moving munitions between locations when he saw the patrol entering the RUC station. He decided that this was a good opportunity to 'prove' himself and took it upon himself to arm one the bombs he was carrying with the intent of throwing it into the station. It was his inexperience with the bombs that caused him to detonate it in his hands. A chilling thought should the bomb have been in the hands of a more experienced terrorist.
It was also after 20-odd years that I confronted some of my own personal demons and in late 2008 I was finally diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Having mates who saw what I saw and experienced similar things has been helpful. I still struggle to talk openly about my experiences but writing this book has assisted.
Do I feel a loss?
No! I wouldn't change a thing. To do so would change who I am now.
As a young child I went to Sunday School. At the back of the church were the usual Christian posters. One always had me puzzled. It depicted an African man planting crops in a drought ravaged field and had the phrase written across it 'Man Is Not A Man Until He Has Known Hardship'. Northern Ireland gave me a 'cross' to carry. At times it can be a heavy burden. But at last I think I understand that poster.
It still doesn't stop the 'what ifs', though. I just have to believe, as a matter of 'faith', that all my experiences during 1987 were really nobody's
fault, even if I no longer have any faith! What if...
On the Combat Stress web site the following is stated:
"Since the end of World War 2, the vast majority of the British People have known nothing but peace. But it's been a very different story for the men and women of our armed forces. Time and again, they have been in the front line defending Britain's interests. In Brunei, Borneo, Indonesia, Malaya, the Falklands and the Gulf. More recently, they have played a central peace keeping role in the Balkans, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And closer to home, many thousands have been involved during the thirty year long campaign in Northern Ireland, an operation that has perhaps been the most difficult and dangerous of all".
'Loyally I Serve' was the regimental motto. "Loyally I still serve" is my silent reply.
The End
City Club 1986 Mick on the left me on the right. 'Before'.
Christmas 87 somewhere in Germany. 'After'.
