Life After Death - A Guardsman's Tale

by James Paul Watson

As a young boy, I was engulfed by the romanticism associated with warfare and was destined for a career within the Infantry, but I was never prepared for what comes after and the hidden wounds of warfare that always seem to remain. In the 1990s, the British Army was world-renowned as being 'The Best', yet, when it came to the welfare of its soldiers, this was far from the case. Our behavioural conditioning had been perfected, and we were trained to dehumanise and kill the enemy without question or hesitation, but what are the long-term psychological effects of such methods? This is an honest account of my generation of war-fighters, a group of soldiers who progressed from operations in Northern Ireland and the Balkans to the high-intensity attrition battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. We witnessed genocide first-hand in Kosovo, went to war in Iraq, then stood toe-to-toe with the Taliban - this is a Guardsman's Tale.

415 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2021

Reviews

[P Shread · Rating 5 out of 5]

PTSD

I was in the Police from 1978 to 2005 and your story describes how I went through my service. The Police Force was everything to me and like you I fought back from serious injury and yet when I needed help I was s**t on from on high. It's not just the Army it's all the government services, they love you when you are putting it all in but as soon as you are perceived to be a problem doors close, walls go up and you are left in freefall.