The Falklands heroes who found peace hard to win

“I could see the bodies and hear the noise of the battle. We were going up the
mountain in the dark, soaked through and freezing, with 70mph winds in our
faces. I had frostbite in my hands and toes. The tracer fire was everywhere
and the bombs and starshells were going off. You could hear the Argentines
screaming in Spanish when they were hit and our lads screaming too.”

He remembered one soldier calling out to him in pain. “He said, ‘Oh Gordon, I
think I’ve broken my ankle.’ I says, ‘Davey, you’ve done more than that.’
I’ve seen his leg, it was about 10 yards away from his body, kicking.”

Even more gruesome images also haunted his nightmares.

“I arrived at the top of the mountain the next morning just as the dead were
being laid out with the padre. I had to unzip their body bags and check the
dog tags. Some had their faces blown off. I knew them all. One was my best
mate, a guy called Malcolmson. That was what stayed with me later.”

The night sweats and rages of post-traumatic stress disorder would destroy Mr
Hoggan’s marriage, his livelihood and very nearly his life. He was saved, he
says, by the work of a charity called the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and
Families Association, and it was his appearance in an SSAFA advertisement
that prompted old comrades to get in touch.

The first to arrive was John Hinds, a short, tidy lance-corporal who was 25 at
the time of the Falklands. He left the Army the following year and became a
panel beater, moving to Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

When they met in the street outside Wellington Barracks in Victoria, central
London, both men were smart in regimental blazers and both were visibly
nervous. But an awkward handshake gave way to a long hug, and when they came
apart again their eyes were glistening. “Right,” said one, “back to the
Eighties. Two pints of vodka and Coke …”

Not being invincible young squaddies any more, however, they settled for beer
in the sergeants’ mess. The strength they obviously got from being together
was reinforced when they found out they had been through similar pain,
without knowing it.

“I was in denial for years,” said Mr Hinds. “Eventually my wife, who is a
nurse, made me go and see a psychiatrist with her. Listening to her describe
my behaviour, I was in tears about what I had done. I couldn’t remember any
of it. One time I went out to get a kebab on a Friday and rang her on the
Tuesday from Dunkirk in France, with no idea how I had got there. In the
end, she couldn’t stand any more.”

As he talked, they were joined by Colin Guthrie, a lance-sergeant who was 24
at the time of the conflict. “I’ve done a lot of things since I left the
Army in 1986. I was in the police but that didn’t work out. I worked on a
pig farm, in factories, I worked for solicitors. There’s just a restless
spirit in me. To be honest, I should have stayed in.”

Jeff Hart was a 20-year-old lance-corporal in the Falklands. He is now an
account manager for a computer distribution company in Nottinghamshire. “I
never had the chance to grieve with these guys and talk to them about the
demons we had, because I moved to New Zealand straight after the war. I
didn’t suffer as much because I started a new life straight away.

“I’m comfortable now. There’s nothing like the Army, though. These are my best
mates, around this bar.”

Kenny Mains is a planning officer for BT in Surrey. At the time of the battle
he was a 21-year-old guardsman in

G Company with Mr Hoggan, and they were photographed together in one of the
most celebrated images of the conflict.

It captures the moment of elation just after the enemy surrendered, and shows
Gdmn Mains grinning with his thumbs up while Gdmn Hoggan stands at the back
waving a machine gun. His joy turned out to be premature.

An enemy sniper was hiding in the rocks at the top of the mountain, refusing
to give in.

“His bullet bounced off a rock and hit me in the side. It broke six of my
ribs, a bit of my kidney was lopped off and a bit of my intestine,” said Mr
Hoggan. He recovered, rejoined his unit and spent another 10 years in the
Army. But it was when he left and returned to Scotland, to start a business
with the help of his father, that his psychological scars became an open
wound.

“I hit the drink really bad then, and was smoking wacky baccy and getting
paranoid. I got terrible, punchy, always getting into brawls in the pub. I
fell out with the mother of two of my daughters because of my behaviour. The
business went bankrupt and my dad went ballistic.”

In desperation, he returned to London, where he had served with the Guards.
Then he had worn a bearskin and tunic and stood proudly to attention at the
royal wedding in 1981. Now he was returning with all his possessions in a
holdall.

“I thought I would know somebody and I could get a job but I didn’t. I drank
what money I had left. I ended up sleeping on the streets for 18 months,
fighting anyone who looked at me and drinking anything I could get hold of.
Methylated spirits, probably. I was a tramp. Long straggly hair, long beard.
I’m not proud of it, but that’s what I was.”

The reminders of his past were cruel. “I used to walk up to Buckingham Palace
and watch the guys on guard duty, thinking, ‘I used to do that.’ I would
stand at the railings and cry.”

Then one day when he was begging, a man came and sat down beside him. “He
says, ‘Are you ex-Service? You shouldn’t be living like this. What’s
happened to you?’ I says, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

The stranger worked for SSAFA and gave him the number of someone who could
help. “I had to beg the money for a phone call, but the next day they came
and took me to a place where I could get a shower, shave and a haircut. They
gave me a new set of clothes, and the first square meal I’d had for 18
months. I was rattling with the drink. If it wasn’t for that guy I’d be
dead.”

But his trials were not yet over. Trying to start again in Birmingham, he was
unable to outrun the trauma in his head. “I wanted to die, so I cut both my
arms. My mate found me with blood all over my bedroom, but my heart was
still pumping.”

Sectioned for 13 weeks, he was visited by his family. “I don’t remember that,
but my brother-in-law had served in Northern Ireland and recognised what was
happening. He put me in touch with the charity Combat Stress. I went to a
psychiatrist in London who said it was one of the worst cases of PTSD he had
ever seen. He got right into my head. That’s when the guilt came out.”

At the start of the battle for Tumbledown, his commanding officer had asked
for two men to set up a machine gun post.

“Two young lads volunteered. One of them was my best mate Malky. They got
killed. All these years later, I was saying, ‘That should have been me,’ I
should have volunteered ’cos I was older than them and more experienced, but
I never …”

Slowly, with therapy and drugs, he recovered himself. “I still get the
nightmares, but if I take the medication I’m OK. I’ve been fighting this
horrible condition for eight years now, but I’ve learnt to cope with it. I
put my second wife Annette through hell, too, but she has supported me all
the way.”

As the talk flowed with the pints, themes emerged. All of the men had split
from wives or partners in the wake of the war, and admitted to having been
“a nightmare to live with” for while. Most had remarried. Mr Hinds had his
own happy ending.

“We were divorced six years ago, but Anne Marie saw a change in me. I started
dealing with my problems. We got remarried last year on the day that would
have been our 25th wedding anniversary. So it’s good, aye.”

They all thought they had left the Army too soon; and two even volunteered to
serve again when the war in Afghanistan began. “I got in touch with the
local Signals unit and said, ‘Can I join up?’ ” said Mr Mains. “Don’t get me
wrong, I probably couldn’t run 500 yards without getting out of breath but I
could free up some lad to go to the front line. They said I was too old.”

He too had suffered from PTSD, to the extent that for a while he could not
even step outside his front door, but he had also overcome it in the end,
with help.

All five agreed that despite the trauma, the Army had given them the best
days, and best mates, of their lives. “We grew up together,” said Mr Mains.

“We haven’t seen each other in so long but when we walk into a bar like this,
it’s like we just parted yesterday. I know that being in the Army and
fighting in the Falklands has hurt me and hurt my family, in lots of ways,
but I would do it all again.”

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