Shell-shocked ex-soldier on the firing line

Jan 1 2008 by Steffan Rhys, Western Mail

A FORMER soldier who suffered post-traumatic stress after serving in war-torn Bosnia has been given a council house on the edge of one of Britain’s busiest tank firing ranges.

Lee Fry, 34, who served as part of a UN peacekeeping force during the Balkans War, claims the sound of explosions on the neighbouring Castlemartin gunnery range throughout the day and night is worsening his disorder by bringing back memories of the conflict.

The former Royal Welch Fusilier is now appealing to his local council to move him from the bungalow a few hundred yards from the edge of the seven-mile range in Pembrokeshire, which is open for training to all regular and territorial Army and Cadet forces, other services and some overseas forces.

He said, “I couldn’t believe it when I realised how close I was. One of the sentry posts is just down the road from me and I shudder whenever the exercises start. It is just like being in Bosnia again when we were under fire all the time from the rebels, not knowing if we would survive the night’s patrol.”

Explosions from the 60-tonne tanks can be heard up to 25 miles from Castlemartin, which covers around 5,900 acres of land in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. It is one of the Army’s major live-fire training and manoeuvre facilities for armoured fighting vehicles in the UK and the only UK Army range normally available for armoured units for direct-fire live gunnery exercises and associated manoeuvres.

It was requisitioned by the War Office in 1938. The ruins from 53 farming communities which had to be relocated, are still dotted around the range. The Ministry of Defence is restricted to firing for 44 weeks a year but this tally is increasing each year as more regiments are called up to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The nightmares have returned because of the noise of jets overhead and the tanks constantly firing near my home,” said Mr Fry.

“It’s just like a sick joke – but I don’t find it funny. I have appealed to the council but they don’t seem to understand my problems.”

He was 19 when he served with the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia. He was stationed in Gorodze, where troops were attacked by both Chechen rebels and Bosnian Serbs, and shelled on a daily basis from Serb positions. He was discharged from the Army in 1993 after only three years but claims he is still suffering from the post traumatic stress disorder diagnosed later.

He sees the affliction as leading to the breakdown of his marriage and two other relationships. He is being helped by the ex-services mental health organisation Combat Stress and has stayed at their residential home in Shropshire.

Mr Fry, who lives alone, was placed at the property when he applied to Pembrokeshire County Council for a house in a rural location. “I am unemployable and living on £100-a-week benefits,” he said. “I can’t afford a car and have a 10-mile round trip to walk to the nearest shops.”

A spokesman for Pembrokeshire council said, “Mr Fry was housed at Castlemartin as a temporary measure because he was homeless and living in bed and breakfast accommodation.

“Pembrokeshire County Council appreciates his predicament, and together with PASH (Pembrokeshire Action for Single Homeless), Shelter, and PRISM (the Mid and West Wales Alcohol and Drug Advisory Service) we have been working with Mr Fry for the last three years. The council has been assisting him to find properties in Pembrokeshire. We are pleased that Mr Fry has recently started to bid for available properties, and we anticipate that because he has a Gold priority, with additional homeless priority, that he will be re-housed in the near future.”