Soldier Down

‘When the dust has settled…the war is over, the career finished…that’s when the real battle begins. And there are no real winners, it doesn’t work like that. You can only say you survived as best you could, anything else is a bonus and nothing short of a miracle really…’ My name is John McIntyre. Formally Sergeant John McIntyre, until I was injured and my career was taken from me. I have a new label now. No longer a soldier, now I am an army veteran fighting a new battle against the most hideous of illnesses. You can’t see it when you look at me, but it’s all consuming and utterly devastating. They call it post-traumatic stress disorder, though what’s disorderly about freaking out over some of the things I have seen and done I do not know. Sometimes you just have to pull yourself apart, analyse every bit, chuck out the broken bits you can’t fix and rebuild, just hoping there is enough left to make a half decent person. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I just hope that I can make it, and I hope that one day, I might even find a way to be happy again. Following on from All’s Fair, Soldier Down joins John in his epic battle to build his life up from scratch, to deal with his demons and lay them to rest in the hopes of a better future.