Life after War: Haunted by Helmand

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

The war in Afghanistan has been raging since 2001.

Wave after wave of young men and women have been through its horrors.

Any casualties? Any casualties?

For one platoon, catastrophe struck on 10th July 2009.

Nearly half of them would be injured or killed.

It remains the bloodiest day for a British foot patrol

in the history of the campaign.

This film is about four men who survived that patrol

but are still trying to get over the mental scars.

Alex Horsfall was the boss of the platoon.

He lost a leg in the attack but today he's more worried about

whether his men can recover from their mental injuries.

'Post-traumatic stress does arise from a tour in Afghanistan.'

It's a horrible disease, really.

Peter Sherlock, known as Sherly,

is haunted by the terrifying memories of what he saw on that day.

And in these nightmares it's exactly the same as it was

when we were out there, so...pretty scary.

Matthew Ramdeen was on the patrol

and thought he'd got through unscathed.

But for a time, his mother could see he was in trouble.

I'm in tears. Every day I'm in tears,

every day I'm waking up, going to work,

thinking, "Has he walked out into the street and killed someone?"

Kevin Holt, known as Holty, can't forget the carnage of the ambush,

and has been living with the consequences ever since.

'I had mood swings. Anger, anger problems. I smashed up my room.'

Smashed my TV up, everything.

And I don't even know why.

For one of their friends, the memories of that day proved

impossible to live with and he took his own life.

The nightmares, the flashbacks, the memories, the loss,

it was too much in the end for him to cope with.

I suppose he saw it as his...the only way to get peace.

It's three years now since these young men

returned from Afghanistan, and yet the terrors still torment them.

Over the course of a summer, we'll follow them to see

if they can win the battles they still fight.

It's the third anniversary of that fateful patrol

when five men were killed.

'Today's the 10th July,'

'which officially makes it third year anniversary

'of when we all got blown up.'

'I've decided to go up and see the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.'

Alex is an Old Etonian and after uni joined the infantry as an officer.

He now lives by himself in central London,

but on 10th July 2009, he was in charge

of the patrol that was ambushed. It's a date etched on his memory.

'It's a date that you actually remember more than your birthday.'

-TANNOY:

-Stoke on Trent, Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly.

'It's sort of three years, "Hey, I'm alive,"

'and at the same time it does come along with the deaths

'of five guys in the platoon.'

LAUGHTER ON VIDEO

Down here in the middle,

you've got the names of the five from 9 Platoon. William Aldridge,

James Backhouse, J Horne, Joe Murphy, Danny Simpson.

What's quite nice to see as well is the flowers there,

all dedicated to the five.

I was very, very close to getting my name written up on this wall

but I had several riflemen looking after me.

That's why I think you sort of come here to also say thank you.

Because they did a bloody good job

and it is thanks to them that I'm still here.

Alex still feels responsible for the men who died that day,

and for those who survived the horror.

He's made it his mission to get them all back together for a reunion.

There have definitely been a few cases of things

like post-traumatic stress and...

so there's definitely issues and, I suppose,

getting everyone together is maybe quite a good, soothing way

to sort of deal with things like post-traumatic stress,

being able to sort of talk amongst your friends

who were there, who know what you're talking about.

One of the lads Alex would like to get along to the reunion is Peter Sherlock.

Peter came back from Afghanistan haunted by the terrors,

and had to leave the army in 2011 to escape the constant reminders.

Since then, he's relied on drink to drown out the bad memories.

-Can I please have a pint of Fosters and a...

-Kronenbourg, please.

-..Kronenbourg ?

-Want one, Pete?

-A Newcastle Brown Ale, please.

And a Newkie, please.

Peter has a young daughter, Hope, but he's no longer living with

her mother and he doesn't see his daughter as often as he would like.

He's moved back with his parents near Salisbury,

and they're trying to do what they can for him.

You really only drink out of boredom, then?

Is that what you're saying?

If I go out when I am down, like really down,

then I come back in a right state.

I won't... I wouldn't be able to walk or talk properly.

All he wanted to do was drink, really, when he came home,

really sad. And I asked him about it, why he was doing it

and he said, "Well, for a few minutes,

"for a short time I can forget and life's normal".

Another survivor Alex wants to get along to the reunion is

Matthew Ramdeen.

He left the army six months after the tour but found he was still

living with the fear of improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

It was difficult to adjust to civilian life as it was before.

Walking down the street,

you think, "Am I going to set of an IED with every step I take?"

He moved back to live with his mum, Jo, in west London.

Paranoid when he came home. Things like shutting the windows,

making sure things were locked then look out the window just to

make sure we weren't being followed.

Walking over a drain that made a noise, you know, that would set you off.

You hear a loud bang, you jump and you think, "What just happened?"

The member of the platoon who's going to be hardest to

get along to the reunion is Kevin Holt, or Holty.

After the tour, Holty was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

He left the army in January 2011 to try and escape his demons.

His moods are still very up and down.

Kevin is living with his sister, Jess,

and that means he gets to catch up with her fiance, Brendan,

who's an old friend from the same platoon.

'I had mood swings, anger,'

anger problems. One stage, I smashed up my room

in the block back in Ballykinler.

I smashed my TV up, everything...and I don't even know why.

-Out of anger?

-Yeah. I still have dreams.

Obviously, I still get flashbacks and that.

To be honest with you, I ain't really been able to sleep.

For the men involved, life changed for ever on that awful day.

Two months before, Alex and his men

from 9 Platoon, C Company, 2 Rifles had been posted to one of the most

dangerous places for British troops in Helmand province.

This is my old Wishtan patrol map of the area we were operating in.

Their base, Wishtan, was set in the hostile town of Sangin.

One of Alex's right hand men was Rehan Pasha,

or Pash to his friends.

This is Pash. He's to square Scotty away in all situations.

As well as working in a school,

Pash is in the territorial army, and in the spring of 2009 he'd

volunteered to do a tour of duty with 9 platoon as a Lance Corporal.

CAMERAMAN: Wahey. HE CHUCKLES

Their mission was to try and bring security to the area, and that

involved them patrolling the maze of alleyways around the base.

We're pretty much all kitted out, we've got all our stuff on

and we're just going to go over to the loading bay.

Their first month in the area was relatively quiet.

But as the days passed, they started to find

an increasing number of IEDs.

Ten seconds.

EXPLOSION

-That's a personnel mine.

-Whoo hoo hoo!

Wishtan's always been considered as the one place on earth where

there's no lack of IEDs, shall we say?

During our time there, that only sort of increased.

This footage was shot a few weeks before the terrible ambush.

When they went out on patrol on 10th July, nobody was filming.

For some of the men the events of that day

are still too traumatic to describe.

But their leaders are prepared to relive what happened.

We started off in a Wishtan here.

They came out this little exit here.

They patrolled down the Wishtan bazaar.

Alex was leading the patrol.

Pash was with the reserve force watching on.

We'd go one way, we'd find an IED, so we'd be slightly pushed,

slightly channelled.

Came out towards a clearing at the end of the Wishtan bazaar here.

And basically ended up just about here against this low wall

overlooking the entire valley.

And that's where the first IED blasts went off.

SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS

The explosion was not just one bomb, but a daisy-chain of them.

It ripped through a section of men in the patrol,

and 18-year-old Rifleman James Backhouse was killed outright.

Alex was also caught by a blast.

His leg was blown off and most of a hand.

Five other men around him were also injured.

Alex's memory of the day stops at the explosion.

Sergeant Moncho came in sort of took over the platoon and I was

well out of it at this point, called for the quick reaction force.

Pash and the reserve force were scrambled,

and they poured out of the base to help their stricken colleagues.

When he got to the scene of carnage,

Pash can remember going over to Holty.

Holty had been a close friend of James Backhouse

who'd just been killed.

I approached Holty and said, "Mate, you've got to go grab your stretcher."

And I couldn't understand what he was saying to me,

so I shook him and I looked round at him and at first I thought

he was laughing hysterically, it just looked like that and sounded

like that, but he was actually in complete tears just sobbing.

Holty and Back-eye had been really, really close friends

and it had obviously just shaken Holty.

Despite what he'd just witnessed,

Holty continued clearing routes with his metal detector.

For his bravery, he would be mentioned in despatches.

Other people in the platoon deserve it more than me

or...if not everyone.

Everyone should have got one.

Holty's other friend, Brendan, was lying on the ground with

terrible injuries to his legs and arms.

Surgeons would later fight to save his limbs.

They'd had to take tendons as well from in this arm to replace

onto the back of this hand. That's pretty much cut up different parts

of all the body they've had to put in for the arm to save that.

But the legs, which looked initially the worse,

they had to open all this.

There's all part of the inside of my leg there,

they had to bring round to fill in the back where it was all missing.

The soldiers had to get their injured colleagues back to base as quickly as possible.

They were now being fired on from several positions.

Pash turned his attention to his injured boss.

The most severely wounded at that stage was Lieutenant Horsfall

and so it was a matter of manhandling Alex Horsfall

onto the quad bike.

They raced with Alex back to the base.

He was just spasming really and he was using his stump,

he was trying to push himself off the trailer.

Just to keep him on the trailer, I had to lie on top of him.

Behind them, the walking wounded were gathered into a group.

But as they set off, another daisy-chain of IEDs exploded.

SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS

There was a lot of dust, you couldn't see anything,

couldn't hear anything either, really, much.

Three men were killed instantly.

Corporal Jonathan Horne,

Rifleman Joseph Murphy

and Rifleman Daniel Simpson.

Rifleman William Aldridge was severely injured

and died later at Camp Bastion.

The blasts narrowly missed Matthew Ramdeen

who saw the immediate aftermath.

I suppose we don't feel comfortable talking about it,

because you can take yourself back there very quickly.

it's something you don't want to do

and it's a constant battle to forget it.

Meanwhile, Peter Sherlock was back in the base.

He'd come down with heatstroke the day before

and so he'd not been allowed out on the patrol.

But he saw his dead and injured friends brought back in.

He'd been especially close to one of those killed, Daniel Simpson.

I've got a memorial tattoo on my back.

I've got Simpson's name in the middle

and the other lads' names. It's like living memorial for them.

Those with injuries were flown to Camp Bastion for further treatment.

Because he was in such a bad way,

Alex was then flown back to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham.

The others remained at the base, and later that day,

the terrible events they'd witnessed started to hit them.

It was starting to sink in, really. What had gone on

and people started to breaking down about it, really.

getting upset about it.

'You would find the guys throughout the night, you'd hear sobbing.'

That was one day in July, but the men's tour didn't end there.

Their patrols continued with the threat of IEDs until they left

in October. 2009 remains the bloodiest year for British troops

in Afghanistan with 108 fatalities and over 500 wounded in action.

Three years on, and after months in hospital, Alex has

completed an army rehabilitation programme.

He's now able to lead an independent life

with the help of a prosthetic leg and hand.

I like my cricket. I used to play a lot at school.

I was a great wicket keeper. I was quite nifty with the gloves, I think.

-CAMERAMAN:

-That was out.

This is where I keep my prosthetic legs.

This is a great old leg that they give you at Headley Court.

It's called the Sea Leg.

Despite horrific physical injuries,

he doesn't seem to suffer from mental trauma.

When I left the army, I left in January 2012,

I've managed to keep working for the Ministry of Defence.

And life's pretty much back to normal.

The human body's got a wonderful knack of telling you

to sort of get a grip and telling you to move on.

But Alex knows that others from his platoon haven't been able

to get on with their lives so easily and he hopes

a reunion in eight weeks' time could provide them with some support.

What I'm trying to do at the moment, is just make sure I've

got everyone's contacts from the platoon.

This was a platoon T-shirt. It's got everyone, everyone there.

It tells you a story.

It reminds you of a lot of stories.

Post-traumatic stress, it's a horrible disease, really.

And I think by having a little reunion

can be quite a good remedy, just to talk amongst yourselves

about any problems that you've got.

Alex wants to prevent any more of his men reaching

the point of despair, experienced by another member of the platoon,

Rifleman Allan Arnold.

Allan had not been out on the patrol the day his five friends were killed

but he saw them brought back in.

He'd spent his teenage years in Cirencester,

and fulfilled his dream of joining the army at the age of 17.

As he passed through the Catterick's training centre,

he was moulded into a soldier.

His mother, Nickie, was proud of what her son had achieved.

He had ADD, which is Attention Deficit Disorder.

He was also severely dyslexic.

So, you know, for him to do what he did, to be able to get in, yeah.

He did it.

A lot of people said he wouldn't, but he did.

After Catterick, Allan joined Alex's Platoon.

During the spring of 2009, with the rest of his friends,

Allan was sent to Wishtan in Sangin.

That was taken in Afghanistan.

He just looks so happy in that photo,

you know, before everything happened.

It's one of my favourites, cos he does look so happy

and so young.

Then came the day the five men were killed, including his close friend,

William Aldridge, or Baby, as he was known.

Allan called his mum from the base shortly afterwards.

He informed me that his closest friend had died.

Was gone.

He just said that the Baby had gone.

That he'd been killed.

He was crying that he'd lost his friends

and so many, in one go,

and there was nothing that I could do to make it easier for him.

I couldn't cuddle him.

I would just listen.

Like the others in the platoon, Allan's mental health after

the incident was monitored by his senior officers,

and he was given the chance to talk through what happened.

Once back in the UK, he had some counselling through the army,

but Nickie remembers the telephone calls he made to her from barracks.

The majority of the phone calls that I would receive

would be three, four o'clock in the morning.

Um, he was usually absolutely wasted.

You'd say, "Why aren't you asleep?"

"It's three in the morning, go to sleep."

And it was, "I can't, I can't sleep."

He didn't want to sleep because of the nightmares.

He would tell you in phone calls of hearing the lads

crying out in the night, screaming in their sleep,

obviously, having nightmares like he had.

During his Easter leave from barracks in 2011,

Allan stayed with his sister, Abbie, at her flat in Cirencester.

I think he left mine anytime between about three and five,

and he ended up here.

On the 2nd May 2011, Rifleman Allan Arnold,

at the age of 20, took his own life.

At first, I didn't really want to believe it.

I couldn't believe that my brother had taken his own life.

In the weeks after, a lot of people used to come down here

and place flowers on a nearby bench just to pay their respects.

Allan took his own life...

because he felt that it was too hard to carry on...any more.

The nightmares, the flashbacks, the memories, the loss...

it was too much, in the end, for him to cope with.

I suppose he saw it as his... the only way to get peace.

Allan's death came as a bitter blow for Alex, who had led

the platoon on the day

and still felt a responsibility towards his former colleagues.

Very sadly, Rifleman Arnold took his own life.

The last thing you want is for something like that to happen again.

It's hugely demoralising especially sort of after the tour,

once you're back, once you think you're safe.

Alex is fearful that others from the platoon might follow Allan's example.

It's an anxiety shared by Lucy Aldridge.

Lucy is the mother of Allan's close friend, William, who

was killed on the patrol less than two months after his 18th birthday.

Lucy feels William's friends have become part of the family.

We stay in touch via Facebook,

sometimes by telephone a couple of the guys on,

on Mother's Day will give me a call and say, "Happy Mother's Day, Mum."

As well as trying to cope with her own grief for the loss of her son,

Lucy has to deal with some of his friends telling her

they're on the edge.

When you start getting messages from the lads that were serving in 9 Platoon

and they are very specific...

mentioning the fact that they wished they'd died in Afghan...

and then they wouldn't be here dealing with what they're having to deal with now, the aftermath.

That has a very, very deep impact on you.

One of the lads who's been in contact with Lucy is Holty.

Yeah, you just do it online or something?

It's now close to a month until the reunion and he's moved out

of his sister's place to live by himself near to Doncaster.

He's doing his best to hold down a manual job

with a local company but he is still haunted by Helmand.

Maria works as an adviser in a drop-in centre round the corner

from where he lives, and it was with her help that he got his job.

Holty likes to call round from time to time for a chat.

How much is that SIA licence?

I think Kevin's pushing against his demons, his PTSD...

missing the army life. I think there's a massive hole to fill

once they do get home.

It's taken time for Maria to win Holty's trust,

and as she's got to know him, he's revealed more about what

he saw on that terrible day in 2009.

I just don't know how a person can carry on after what he's been through and he does...

seeing your friends

and colleagues just blown away like that.

And for what for?

Maria tries to help Holty get access to the services available to him.

Responsibility for the mental health of veterans rests with the NHS,

but charities also provide much-needed support.

Combat Stress - the leading charity in the field - is in such

demand that it handled 1,500 referrals in 2011,

more than ever before. From initial contact to

the start of treatment, it takes on average 12-16 weeks.

Whilst she waits for Holty to fill out the paperwork for Combat Stress,

Maria's got him treatment through his local GP.

There is some help out there.

I wouldn't have thought there was nearly enough and

accessing the services can be difficult.

Why put them through weeks of waiting lists

when they've already been through so much?

At the moment, Holty is receiving an hour of NHS counselling

a week and he's on medication.

But he doesn't think the counselling is working.

Well, everything I've been to I feel it hasn't really helped.

I don't really like talking about things. Maria's been a big help.

'Worry about it? All the time.'

Um, what they've been through and the memories that are never going to go away and they're

going to have to battle with them for the rest of their life.

After the Helmand tour,

Matthew Ramdeen found it difficult to settle into civvie life

because of his fear of attack, but over time that has begun to fade.

He's looking forward to the reunion, now just a few weeks away.

Everyone kind of went off and did their own thing for a period.

Hello, what's up?

'We just need to stay in contact,'

we should stick together, you know, talk to each other a lot more.

What Matthew would most like to do is become a pilot.

He's just finished his second year of engineering at college and he's

come to Farnborough Airshow where he dreams of fulfilling his ambition.

He thought the post traumatic stress was behind him,

but out of the blue in the summer of 2011 - nearly two years after Afghanistan - it returned.

He was back home in west London with his mother,

Jo, and she saw up close his transformation.

He was fine as in he was back in one piece,

he wasn't missing a limb. There was no change...moods,

there was no outbursts, there was no night sweats that I was aware of,

there was no waking up screaming But obviously it was, it was there.

Don't know, what can I say?

It must have been always there.

I guess I was trying to fight it myself, you know,

try and deal with it myself.

Unchecked, the PTSD threatened to get out of control.

He suddenly turned into a very army person.

Wanted to wear his greens the whole time and was saying to us

"When you've seen your friends die then you'll understand how it feels."

That's when the anger just came out of nowhere.

Punched the doors, started fights with his brother, have a

go at me like he's never done before, and that's when we said, "Jeez, you really need help."

Very scary.

When I first got back I guess I tried to deny it and, you know,

just keep myself busy, keep my mind active, but as I gradually

got less busier, um, I guess I started thinking about it more.

Jo and the rest of the family bore the brunt of it.

I'm in tears, every day I'm waking up, going to work,

thinking what am I going to come back to?

Has he killed his brother, has he walked out in the street

and killed someone?

Getting the help wasn't easy.

I rang the Combat Stress line to get help. They said

unless he does it himself they can't do anything, and that's when I rang

our local mental health and they said he really needs some help.

So they gave him anti-anxiety tablets

and within a week of taking that he, he, he had changed.

He stopped pacing, started to talk more, the temper, the anger,

all went and they said that he definitely needs counselling

to talk about it.

Matthew's old regiment pulled some strings

with Combat Stress to fast track him some counselling.

And today life is returning to normal.

He's off the treatment and the studies are going well.

He relaxes by playing war games on his PS3.

I feel better now. I feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

One person Matthew expects to see in a few

weeks at the reunion is his good friend Peter Sherlock.

I think the idea of us all getting back together,

the original 9 Platoon boys that were all out there, I just

reckon it's gonna be amazing to be honest.

Peter is trying to control the drinking

and finds that sailing on the Solent provides much needed

distraction from the horrors of Helmand.

I go in my own little zone,

I don't have to think about negative thoughts.

Sailing also gives him the chance to sort out his priorities.

Uh, I've got a beautiful baby girl and uh her name's Hope Liberty.

She was conceived not long after I got back from Afghan and

coming back from Afghan I decided that I like the name Hope.

And then I saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty

and it stands for like freedom and all of that.

And, uh, Hope Liberty I thought had a nice ring to it.

Peter and Hope's mother have split up and Hope lives with her,

so he doesn't get to see his daughter as much as he would like.

This is the most recent picture I've got of her.

I like wondering what she's up to what she's doing, how she is,

how much taller she is, what she's into.

I'd love to teach her how to sail, that would be a dream.

Spurred on by his love for his daughter he's slowly

getting his life back on track.

He is spending less time down the pub

and he now lives in his nan's old house near Southampton.

If you'll pour that in there now, Peter, we'll have one each.

Together with his dad, Derek, he's doing it up with a view to selling it.

The two of them work for a local company painting and decorating.

Derek as a manger and Peter as an apprentice.

We'll never know what they've gone through.

He goes quiet, he's on Facebook He had a picture there the other day

and I said "I haven't seen that one before Pete, who's that

"and who's this?" I was in tears.

He was like, "He's dead, he's committed suicide."

We're blessed that he's home. It's the mental thing that bothers us,

how is he going to cope with that?

Thankfully we're here for him.

Peter is coming to terms with his Helmand experience,

but it is a constant struggle.

He can't get a proper night's rest because his sleep is still haunted by nightmares.

I had a couple while we were still in Afghan. To be honest, after

the nasty days happened, I had a few then and really it started

when we got back and it's not stopped.

I ask him, "How are you sleeping? Are you still having nightmares?"

And he just says, "Well I've had nightmares every night since,"

you know and that's three years.

We personally have encouraged him to get some professional help

but he's quite a proud young man

and he thinks he can cope with it on his own.

You wake up with quite a jump and quite a fright in the,

a bit of a sweat on sometimes, so sleeping,

sleeping can be pretty rough, to be honest,

but a lot of it in a way I feel I'm sort of lucky, cos it happens in

my sleep more than when I'm awake, whereas for some of the lads I know

they get it while they are awake as well as when they are asleep.

Peter's nightmares at the moment are about his mates,

Holty and Matthew Ramdeen.

In my nightmare we were in Wishtan and we had gone out

and we put the ladder up and Holty was first man over,

but when he went down the ladder, he'd been blown up I've also had

it with Ramdeen. So it's a... It's like re-living it. You think it's real.

Back in London, with the reunion just three weeks away,

Alex is trying to locate as many from the platoon as possible.

Some people, I think, are on their sort of seventh phone since then.

I'm still sort of trying to track down half of the platoon

and figure out where they're all hiding.

The venue is a Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston,

just outside of Birmingham.

He wants to make it more of a special occasion

and has suggested black tie.

From the guys I've spoken to, they're all sort of quite keen

about the black tie option. And, er, you know,

opportunity to dress up, look cool for a bit.

It's er always quite good fun.

Even so, Alex is still worried some will slip through the net

and miss out on the reunion.

I'll do my best to sort of try and push people into...into coming,

maybe sort of twist an arm.

There's been chatter on Facebook between the lads about the reunion.

But Holty has sent out a message saying he's feeling down,

and they're concerned he might not come.

I'm most worried about Holty.

Holty is one of the more sensitive fellows who...he's

a bit of a roller coaster.

He sent me a message the other day telling me that he's a bit depressed.

The messages says "To be honest mate, don't think this civvie life

"is for me and don't really wanna go back in the army.

"In a low mood at the minute, nothing is exciting me".

Because the reunion is fast approaching, Peter

and Matthew decide they must visit Holty to raise his morale

and make sure he attends.

We're going to go on down and see Holty in Doncaster.

Probably end up having a few drinks later on.

Yeah, going up north.

When they get there, they're relieved to find he appears to be in a better mood.

This is dash. Little Dashy.

-Cute, isn't he? Kevin

-Grrrrr!

-How's your love life going?

-Shit.

Any takers? What about yours, Ramdeen?

It's been a while for you, though, innit?

Holty remains a hero in the platoon.

He was the man with the metal detector at

the front of the patrols whose job it was to find the deadly IEDs.

To go out and know that you're going to be pretty much the first

person to get hit if you do miss one.

And to be able to go out and do that everyday, especially after seeing

things kick off as well, I think he's got balls of steel for that.

The next morning, with the sun shining for once, the lads

decide to take Holty to Skegness to help him clear his troubled mind.

I'm going to be sick.

# I see a bad moon rising

# I see trouble on the way...#

You wouldn't think we used to be soldiers.

# There's a bad moon on the rise. #

I'm not interested in making new friends.

I feel more alone now - well, not right this minute,

but, yeah, I feel more alone since I got out than I did when I was in.

Not long ago I wanted to be totally by myself, and left alone,

and it was a pretty down day

and I phoned Holty and he wanted exactly the same thing.

I reassured him and if I was there I would have give him a cuddle and that I guess.

But it's just one of them things, isn't it?

It's true, though, innit?

You don't need to say, "Oh, don't worry mate,

"everything's gonna be all right."

You just say "Yeah, man up."

Yeah, that's about it, yeah. Man up, carry on.

Holty wants to go to the reunion and he can see its importance.

Because it'll get everyone back together.

We've been through so much together

and I think that's what makes us unique and a special platoon.

But they know that Holty is still up and down,

and so they can't be certain that he'll attend the reunion.

When Matthew and Peter return home, he'll be alone again in his flat.

By contrast, when Matthew started to suffer post traumatic stress, he was

living with his mother, Jo, and she was able to get help for him.

Even so, she remains appalled by how difficult it was to get him treatment.

For me it was disgusting that the way I had to do it.

It's a long process, and you have to fight for it.

If you have someone who really, really needs the help there

and then it's not there, the help isn't there.

And that's what scared me the most.

As for Allan Arnold, he was still in the army

when he took his own life, although he was on leave at the time.

His mother Nickie doesn't believe her son got the help he needed -

she thinks he was let down by the military.

Angry, very angry.

You can't just look after their physical wellbeing, you know,

send them to the doctor, send them to the dentist,

you have to look after their mental health as well.

They need help to cope with what they've seen and what they've done.

They have to have the counselling, the professional help

to learn how to live with it.

Allan's regiment was 2 Rifles, and its commanding officer

for the 2009 tour was Brigadier Robert Thomson.

He will not speak about Allan's case specifically

but he does accept that some soldiers with mental health issues

may have slipped through the net.

I think that it's very difficult to say that I didn't miss people

because these are difficult issues

to be able to tackle with absolute fidelity.

Um, but what I can say is I was confident

that we had put the right processes in place and as a regiment we take,

and as an army we take the care of our people absolutely as a priority.

And he has a message for our lads who've left the regiment.

Anybody who feels that they haven't been looked after by the regiment

gets in touch with us now, we are a family regiment.

There is no sense that we would want

not to be seen to be looking after our own.

It's nearing the end of the summer

and the reunion is virtually upon them.

Alex has come to London's Jermyn Street

to take up an offer from Emma Willis, a bespoke shirt-maker.

-Hello, Emma.

-Alex, hi.

-How are you?

-I'm fine. How are you?

Yeah, very well.

She's offered to make the men the shirts they'll need for the reunion

free of charge.

I thought it's definitely appropriate

that our great servicemen are looking very smart in black tie.

After his spell in hospital,

Emma met Alex at the Headley Court Rehab Centre.

I started going there three years ago

having heard a programme on Radio 4 about it.

I wanted to try and work out a way of doing something

and then it struck me shortly after I could do the bespoke shirts for them.

I can make the shirt to fit all their body measurements.

I've probably put on a little bit of weight around the neck.

-OK, so a lot of muscle, a lot of time in the gym. OK!

-Definitely muscle.

Very early on he was very, very thin,

and characteristic chain-smoking.

Emma has a clothing factory in Gloucester

and makes shirts for free for disabled servicemen and women.

So you tell me which one you prefer.

I've always sort of preferred these ones, rather than the pleated ones.

'I know the dinner will be amazing.

'I can guarantee there will be so much laughing.'

Take care. Thanks, bye.

It's lovely to see you. Good luck with all your plans.

Ah, yes, I will - I'll do my best.

-Thank you very much.

-See you soon.

-All the best.

-Bye.

But at the eleventh hour, just before the reunion, there's a hitch.

Holty is in a bad way again

and doesn't think he'll be able to attend.

Sometimes negative thoughts, like, overwhelm...

..in me head and that, and it's just...

I could go for days without talking to anybody or...

..just seeing anybody.

Although meeting his old friends may help,

he's not sure he can face the idea of company.

I get into a...

..like a distant mood.

Like...

..I don't want to talk to anybody, don't want to see nobody.

I just...I just want to be alone.

At the minute I'm just taking things day-to-day.

I've not really got any plans.

Em...

I don't know, really, whatever happens, happens.

THEY CHATTER

Finally, it's the 18th August

and the evening of the reunion in Birmingham.

I know people's voice mails better than I know them.

Whilst buck's fizz is served on the terrace,

Alex is still trying to round up a few stragglers.

I was just wondering when you're going to turn up...

I'm just trying to track you down...

Just turn up and we'll see you when you get here.

Do turn up at any point. Anyway, take care. Bye-bye.

I've been on the phone to Boycey all day.

He promised me he's coming!

We've finally made it.

We're still waiting for a few more to turn up,

but I think the turnout's good.

For Matthew and Peter, it's a special moment

to be with their old comrades again.

It's brilliant. Getting back with all the lads again,

having a few drinks. Getting all the army banter

and after not seeing everyone for so long.

Quite shocking to see everybody scrubbed up all right!

I could, mate, but I'm worried where it's going!

'The boss put some money behind the bar.'

It was really great having a formal dinner together,

all of us looking smart.

Haven't seen some of the lads since Afghanistan to be honest.

Are you still having further ops and things?

Yeah, on my arm.

At the very last moment,

Holty is persuaded by his old mate from the platoon, Brendan,

to attend, and they travel down from Doncaster together.

'First time I were in a black tie.

'I looked smart. Everyone did.'

I just thought it might be the last chance

that I'd, like, see everyone together again, so...

I thought, "Just do it."

The lads that were lost over there,

they always come up in conversations.

It's just all the good memories.

The reunion has achieved everything that Alex hoped for.

'It's a wonderful venue, it's a wonderful get-together.'

THEY CHAT

'I've never seen 9 Platoon look so smart.'

< Ohhh!

On the night, Holty was brilliant.

He was back to how he was when we were all together

before we even went out there, and he had a good laugh.

He got a bit tipsy and started acting like Holty.

'So it did him a world of good, I think.'

'It's great to see the guys back together again.

'A lot to catch up about. It's a good time.'

It's now September, and one month on.

For Allan Arnold's sister, Abbie, the grief is still raw.

I don't think I can put into words how much I miss Alan at all.

There'll be a song on the radio that will remind me of him,

or somebody will walk past

who's wore the same deodorant or aftershave as him,

and you get that gut-wrenching feeling in your stomach

like you want to be sick, because you're never going to see him again.

Our lads are approaching the future with fresh hope.

Peter is helping to do up the house of his friend, Gemma,

and she's encouraging him to stay off the drink.

I'm seeing a lot of Gemma.

She doesn't like drink and all of that going on.

I've cut the drink down massively.

And, er... I'll get...

-I will get there.

-HE LAUGHS

And even though he's still refusing to get professional help,

the nightmares are easing up a little.

You could never forget, er, times like that.

That's going to be with you for life.

No matter if you talk to anybody or not.

I still get bad nightmares,

but nowhere near as bad as they were.

It's nice being able to sleep properly now.

He's determined to become the dad

he thinks his daughter, Hope, deserves.

I love her to pieces but I don't get to see her often enough.

And it's heartbreaking not seeing her. Agony.

I'll keep writing her letters.

I've got a half-written letter at home now.

And I've got to finish writing it and I'll send it off.

Matthew has started the third year of his engineering course,

and he sees it as another small step towards his ultimate ambition.

It's always been a dream for me to fly a plane myself.

I want to enrol in the RAF and become a fighter pilot.

'Yeah, let's go, let's go!'

-PILOT:

-'And the nose is coming up and we are rolling now.'

'Woo-hoo! Oh, wow!'

'That was cool!'

-'How's that?'

-'Yeah!'

-The future's bright, you know.

-HE LAUGHS

And yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to it, 100%.

Holty has moved back in with his parents and life's still tough.

I'm just fed up of the way that I'm feeling every day.

I'm just not getting any enjoyment from anything.

This life that I'm in now is pretty boring.

He wants to turn his army experience into something more positive -

he dreams of starting a new life, if possible, far away in America.

Obviously I've got experience from t'army,

which might help me to get...

into the police force in America.

I'm going to try my hardest to get a visa and that.

I just want summat new, summat exciting.

The surviving members of 9 Platoon

are all trying to move on with their lives,

each in their own way.

For some, at least, the demons that have haunted them

since that fateful day are gradually being left behind.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd