Remember the living | 11 November 2011

Every time a politician suggests a introducing a flag-waving British national day, the idea falls flat. We already have one: 11 November, Remembrance Day, where we remember our war dead and resolve to help the living. In my Daily Telegraph column today, I talk about how the government can better serve the tens of thousands who have come back from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
Britain is, for the first time since the post-war years, a nation with a large veteran community. And we’re still not quite sure how to handle it. The Americans are: they had Vietnam, and learnt the hard way about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related conditions. In Britain, we worked out only recently that more Falklands veterans have committed suicide then died in the conflict. For the Gulf War, 48 died in battle and 183 have since either taken their own lives or died in incidents with an open verdict.