As a veteran myself, and for the many veterans on here, it is clear that veterans have a very high risk of not getting on well in their lives. It's a shame and perhaps not fully understood. I guess veterans are often young when they join, probably not from privileged backgrounds, are then institutionalised and then find "normal" life hard to handle. This was exacerbated by the drinking and fighting ethos of the armed forces (in my time anyway). What I will say is the modern recruit is not the same. They are not the ready to fight drinkers that we were - and it's probably the right way to be. I know there are plenty on here who understand what I'm talking about.
For concrete stuff, I got drunk and someone mouthed at me a couple of weeks ago. You can imagine the outcome. Frankly slightly embarrassed - I'm not sure it's the best way to be.

Is there any meaningful support system to speak of after, or is it mostly a 'get on with it'? I guess throughout service you're in that kind of pushing concerns to the back of your mind mode anyway though, so asking for help just may not be the done thing or something that is all that effective once a person is reprogrammed for a time, then told to forgot all of that and get back to 'normal'.

Any new reality, especially one with fight or flight, or traumatic aspects to it, must be a path that is incredibly difficult if not impossible to entirely walk down. Becomes more about trying to find a way forward I suppose? If you could rewind life would you do it all again? Or if that's a tricky question, maybe a better one is would be recommend it for those you served with, or was it a real mixed bag in terms of how prepared and suited they were for army life?

Yes, there's never any harm in learning more; asking rather than assuming.

And as a wider point, there's definitely not enough support for veterans, that's one thing I think we can all agree on.

A cnut of the first order.

As a veteran myself, and for the many veterans on here, it is clear that veterans have a very high risk of not getting on well in their lives. It's a shame and perhaps not fully understood. I guess veterans are often young when they join, probably not from privileged backgrounds, are then institutionalised and then find "normal" life hard to handle. This was exacerbated by the drinking and fighting ethos of the armed forces (in my time anyway). What I will say is the modern recruit is not the same. They are not the ready to fight drinkers that we were - and it's probably the right way to be. I know there are plenty on here who understand what I'm talking about.
For concrete stuff, I got drunk and someone mouthed at me a couple of weeks ago. You can imagine the outcome. Frankly slightly embarrassed - I'm not sure it's the best way to be.