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Photographer and documentary-maker David Modell’s
latest film, Dispatches: Battle Scarred, is a troubling examination of
what happens to soldiers when they come back from active service only
to discover that their experiences have left them psychologically
scarred. It is an unflinching look at the nature of post-traumatic
stress disorder, and at the shocking culture of neglect that allows
these young men’s suffering to go undiagnosed and ignored.
Here, Modell talks about making the film, and about how we can better serve those who serve us on the front lines.
Where did the idea for this project come from?
About
three years ago I made a series of short films for Channel 4 Dispatches
called War Torn, which were four stories of the experiences of families
who had been separated because of the war in Iraq. The short films
elicited quite a powerful response, and were seen to be quite strong
films because of the subject matter. And since then I’d been pushing to
do a longer film about the experiences of returning soldiers.
How did you go about finding the people to appear in the film?
Well,
that’s the most difficult thing, that’s the single biggest task when
you do a project like this, finding the contributors. Although I knew
from the experience of doing War Torn that the stories were there, you
don’t really know the extent of people’s experience, until you get out
and start looking for it. So you do it in a number of ways. You go
through organisations that are in contact with your target subject
matter, but in a case like this, by the time people have made their way
to an organisation, they will have been back at home for some time and
they’ll be quite well down the road of seeking help. We were looking
more specifically for people who had returned recently, and were in the
early stages of trying to get help or trying to assess what was wrong
with them. So they’re more difficult to find, because they’re not
plugged into any system. So the way we did it was the tried-and-tested
technique of wading through months and months and months of newspaper
cuttings on the subject. One of the key elements of the story was the
evidence showing that the number of servicemen in prison had risen
dramatically in the last five years. A lot of those were young guys,
just back from Iraq or Afghanistan, who were in prison for firearms
offences or random acts of violence. So I had somebody looking through
court reports and chasing up any incidents where a young soldier had
been up before the court for something that could be related to their
military service. And then it was a case of knocking on doors. And
eventually, you make your way to the people you’re after. When you do
the legwork and start to get plugged into that world, then other
stories start to come out.
That was very much the case with two of your stories, Danny and Jason, wasn’t it?
Yes.
I’d sent somebody up to meet Danny, and he sounded interesting, and his
story sounded interesting, and I arranged to go and see him. And when I
rang him and arranged to meet him, we were talking about the subject,
and he told me about a friend of his, a serving soldier called Jason,
and said it would be great if he talked to me as well, as he was really
having trouble. He said he was worried about Jason. That was on Monday
or Tuesday, that I has that conversation with Danny. And I went to see
him on the Thursday, and Danny said “You know that mate of mine called
Jason that I was telling you about? Well, he died two days ago. He
killed himself.” It’s at moments like that when you realise there is
some real importance and substance to the story you’re looking at.
The film features four individual stories. You’ve also filmed some other contributors’ stories for the website, haven’t you?
Yeah.
Once you get into that world, you don’t say “I’ve got three or four
soldiers, that’ll be fine”. You get very involved in other people’s
experiences. Part of the process of making a film like this is that you
spend time with a number of people, and tell their stories. And then at
the end you look at the stories that sit best together for a single
programme. That means that you inevitably have other stories that are
equally as compelling, and also need to be heard. So what Channel 4 did
in their wisdom was to create the website to go with this programme,
which can accommodate these other stories and testimonies of other
soldiers. And I really hope that, in doing that, we’ve provided quite a
comprehensive resource for anybody who’s interested in learning more
about the subject - which is something that’s still not properly
understood.
What are the common themes in the stories that you looked at?
There
are a number of things that come across very clearly. What you begin to
understand, when you look into these worlds, is that a lot of the
people who join the army do it as a positive choice. They very often
don’t have a lot of other opportunities in their lives, and in some
cases possibly even struggle a bit in the real world. And so joining
the army is a positive thing. It provides security, it’s doing
something constructive for society as they see it, and it provides a
sort of quasi-family in a world that is emotionally less complex than
the real world. That is good and fine, but the trouble is when you take
people like that, and then expose them repeatedly to trauma, and you
don’t give them adequate support at the end of it and then turf them
back into society, they end up back in a world where they’re less able
to cope than they were in the first place. I think that was probably
true for a number of the guys that I spoke to, but not necessarily all.
The other thing that comes across really strongly is that I don’t think
any of the soldiers that I spoke to - and I’ve spoken to a lot in the
last year - I don’t think any of them felt that they were able to
actively, voluntarily seek help from within the army. One of the guys
whose film is on the website says it’s out of the question. “You
wouldn’t do it because they’re like a pack of wolves. If they sense any
weakness, they’ll descend on you.” A physical injury is barely
tolerated in the army, let alone an emotional one. This was something
that I heard repeatedly from just about everybody that I spoke to. The
only people who did actually get into the medical system when they were
in the army were people like Danny, who had had a psychological
explosion. It seems that to get help you have to explode, so the
responsibility is taken away from you. And of course if you can’t
explode on the outside, you end up exploding on the inside, like Jason
did. And that ended up with somebody killing themselves.
Do
you have any idea what sort of proportion of troops suffer from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder when they come back from serving overseas?
It’s
really difficult, and it’s one of the questions I’d love to be able to
answer, having looked at this for a year. It’s not helped by the way
the MoD collects statistics about mental illness. If you look at the
statistics of people who suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other
associated mental illness, the official statistics show that about
4,000 in the last year were diagnosed with a psychiatric condition
after returning from active service. Which is very low. But those are
people who present themselves to medical services or are diagnosed
within weeks of returning from active service. Anyone who looks at this
subject knows that PTSD very often doesn’t show for a decade after the
event. So that’s a sort of meaningless statistic. One of the common
themes is that when people return from service, they drink to cope with
the trauma they’ve suffered. And the figure for alcohol abuse among
soldiers is absolutely phenomenal. It’s something like 67 per cent of
soldiers have what would be considered an abusive relationship with
alcohol. So you have this apparently quite low diagnosis of psychiatric
problems from the MoD on the one hand, but on the other you have this
sky-high rate of alcohol abuse among soldiers. Most clinicians in the
field would argue those things are related.
You make
the point that there is this culture of soldiers not coming forward to
seek treatment. With that in mind, was it difficult to find guys who
were willing to talk about this on camera? Why did they agree to be
filmed?
It was difficult, yes. It’s easier because all the
guys I’ve spoken to have left the army. The people who did contribute
to the programme I think did it for very positive reasons. I think all
of them feel they’re doing something positive by doing it. I know for
Danny it’s been a really positive focus in his life, particularly since
Jason died, to feel that he can do something that is genuinely helpful.
He has quite rightly got a lot of bitterness about the way he was
treated, and he wanted to express that, but beyond that, when you’ve
seen close up the results of what appears to be a lack of support, the
people who have been in that situation very often want to try and
improve things. I think that’s the case for all the contributors.
Do you think they found the experience therapeutic?
Really
you’d have to ask them. I know Danny has found it a positive
experience. I’ve had very nice messages from Dave Forshaw’s mum, it
obviously means a lot to her to have been able to tell his story. I
hope the same is true for Jason’s parents. I was with them yesterday,
and they’re still very, very hurt and upset about Jason. I hope they
come to see it as a positive thing that they’ve done.
It must be a very difficult thing to interview parents who have recently lost a son. Do you worry about doing things like that?
Just
a bit! Yeah, absolutely. The interview I did with Jason’s parents was
one of the most difficult interviews I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ve
ever done something that’s been quite as raw as that.
Do you have to try and maintain an emotional detachment when you’re making a film like this?
Yes,
otherwise your family would leave you. You have to compartmentalise.
It’s not possible to switch off from it completely, and it’s always
nice when a film has been broadcast, it’s nice to have it out of your
head for a while. It’s a big part of your head while you’re doing it -
the films I make tend to last a year or so, and they tend to be quite
emotionally intense experiences. You do have to be able to put it away
and engage in other things, otherwise you’d go mad and the people
around you would go mad.
The psychological trauma that
many thousands of returning soldiers are suffering is clearly a major
problem. What should we be doing to help our soldiers?
I
think if there’s one thing that would really make a meaningful
difference, it is taking away the responsibility of a soldier to seek
help. I think now that there has to be a change of emphasis. I think
the assumption now that a solider coming back from war is okay unless
they tell you otherwise should change. I think the presumption has to
be that going to war puts you at high risk of developing a psychiatric
problem, and there has to be contingency in place to protect soldiers
who, on our behalf, are being exposed to traumatic events.
Who
is to blame for the culture of neglect that seems to prevail currently?
Is it the army, the MoD, the government? Where does the buck stop?
I
know people will feel angry when they see the film, but I would like
the post-film debate to be less about blame and more about actually
what can change. Yes, it’s fair to ask how have we reached this
situation, and I think it is a combination of things. Above all, you’re
dealing with an institution that is quite detached from the real world.
The military is a kind of world in its own right, and feels more like
something from the 19th century than the 21st century at times. And I
know that some soldiers do still feel that there is still a sense that
the infantry is just cannon fodder, that they’re not valued properly as
professional human beings. So that’s one thing. The other thing that
you have to keep in mind is that, in order to be a soldier, in order to
make an army, there has to be a certain amount of emotional
suppression. What the army do when they’re training a soldier is to
teach him to suppress any emotion other than aggression, and they
target that aggression in a particular direction. That’s what you have
to do if you’re going to make an army. So that means that they are
naturally going to be quite nervous of anything that delves around in
the more fragile emotions of a soldier. Those are the two big cultural
things. Then you’ve got other things on top of that, like fear of being
sued, health and safety legislation, human rights legislation, and the
fear of the cost of changing things.
If someone came to you now and said they were thinking of joining up, what would you say to them?
I
would tell them to discuss it at great length with their family, and to
be aware of the possible psychological risks when they return. And I
would recommend that they gave a certain amount of responsibility to
their family to seek help for them, if they felt that there was any
change in their behaviour when they returned. Because very often the
family can see something is going wrong, but have no idea what to do
about it. So it would be a good policy for someone joining up to say to
their partner or their parents “I realise that this may be dangerous
for my mental health, and if I come back and you’re worried about me,
this is who to call. And it doesn’t matter what I tell you, you call
them and you make sure you get me some help.”
Dispatches: Battle Scarred is on Channel 4 on 7 September at 8pm.
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