Our Forgotten Heroes

I'm not sure how many of you watched last night's BBC Panorama programme which saw Colonel Tim Collins meeting Army veterans who struggle to find work and housing after serving in the British Army.

Click here to watch the programme.

I think the programme gave a true reflection of the sorry state of affairs that is today’s society. With over 20,000 individuals leaving the military every year it is surprising that our system is still failing them.

Serving for your country in the British Army provides individuals with a routine, you then experience situations on tour and only the people that were with you understand what emotions you went through. You experience these emotions with your team, your comrades and then to come back to civilian life can be a harsh reality. I know that I myself struggled when I left the army; after all, you are coming from an institutionalised environment where everything is provided for you. I decided to make my own way but again this was without assistance and it can be tough.

Companies such as Combat Stress are doing a fantastic job at providing support and advice to our troops returning from tour but if the men and women aren’t given information on these charities then how can they help themselves. I have recently been working closely with SSAFA on setting up a mentoring scheme for veterans who are homeless, served time in prison or injured to help them find employment. This scheme is hopefully going live in the spring and will help these individuals re-adjust to civilian life.

Outdoor bootcamp instructors at BMF are constantly looking at ways that we can work with veterans. As you know we only recruit ex-armed forces physical training instructors for our fitness courses and have employed hundreds of veterans over the 11 years the business has been running and I believe that the company provides these individuals with a sense of teamwork that they are used to in the army. We work with the likes of Crisis to recruit individuals who are homeless and fund individuals to take part in our first level of group fitness classes, to try to get them back on the right road.

Ensuring our men and women are ready for war is important, however the move from soldier to a civilian is even more important and we owe it to these individuals because at the end of the day they protected us at war and now it is time for us to protect them.

It would be great to hear your thoughts...