When it comes to sensitive subjects like war, sometimes people are just so angry at the impact it has had on their own life, particularly for servicemen and their families, that asking them a question could unleash an explosion of resentment. When I went to see Chris Ashton, former soldier to Iraq I was struck with sympathy but I also got ambushed with a tale o personal anguish.
His story was one I would regard as tragic in many ways. He lost his eye in an accident while someone was apparently 'messing around' with equipment he said while they were cleaning their guns after a patrol when a gun went off and took his eye out. It caused him severe brain damage and he was in a coma for nearly a year.
When he finally did come out of it he says he was told that he's been taken of the rolls in the service. His wife left him at some point around then and took their son with him and now he's in a wheelchair suing the government and trying to earn a living with a business venture, a carer, a seething gut and a hole in his life.
I had expected an insight into what actually happened in Iraq, hoping that as part of the military force serving there he might have some information that was out of public reach or view. What I got was a bit of colour that would set the scene for my radio package by providing a sketch of landscape in the Iraq. It was useful but the long lament from someone who felt they had not received due compensation from the government for what they had put in was not in the contextual parameters of my piece. He has fought for his country but today that country's government is the one he was angry at because he feels he is not getting the assistance from them that he needs to pick up the pieces and move on.
As someone who is against the idea of war I could not understand what makes people go to war in the first place, it was only when I heard this tale that I realized how financial climate can play it's part. Across the street from the park we were sitting at was the recruitment office where he signed up because he needed work, he couldn't find it and rather than have his family on his back he felt he'd be better off fighting for his country.
When he went, he said he didn't know what the purpose really was though. “You'll go to Iraq , you'll fight for you country, bang bang bang”. Were his words. They chilled me but also made me realise just how much the lack of employment and training opportunity could be responsible for rage and frustration and how it perhaps in way makes men aggressive enough to think that the military is the best outlet for that angst.
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