When you lose identity.

// Memories

It’s been the final week of the school summer holidays this week and I did something which I’ve been putting off for almost 20 years.

I visited the Royal Signals museum in Blandford.

Having served in the Armed Forces for 7 years since I was 17 and completing my basic training, I moved to Blandford Camp as a fresh 18 year old who wanted to experience life and I spent about 12 months learning the fundamentals of radio transmissions, the army equipment of the day and it’s where I completed (and competed) in various triathlon competitions.

It was a strange time as I had just left school, completed ‘Army college’ where I learned the fundamentals of military life (with zero alcohol) and it was where I was suddenly let loose in the world with a bunch of other lads.

I lived and supported myself on camp and it was the first time I’d lived by myself so that independence suddenly dawned on me and I was able to make my own decisions (within reason).

I’ve always struggled, despite my service, to fully identify as a member of the Armed Forces and I’ve never really embraced the ‘veteran’ tag - I’m not sure why I haven’t, I just don’t really talk about it or look at it with any sense of pride or joy.

// Stolen Identity

If you lived in America, you’d be hearing people saying ‘Thankyou for your service’ over and over again and even when I was travelling a lot for work and visiting America and people would say it to me, I’d want to curl up and dive into a hole somewhere.

Society paints military service as a noble and honorable duty, with the assumption that those who’ve served should feel a deep sense of pride and belonging.

But I don’t.

I think it’s because my personal feelings and my experiences didn’t really align with military culture (which is why I left) - the rigid structure, the culture of conformity, and even the moral implications of military actions created a disconnect. And I guess this lead to feelings of alienation and discomfort, it made it difficult to embrace the identity that society expects me to adopt.

I was never really one to shout about my military service, even when I was serving. When I joined up, I did so to ‘get’ away from my home life which was turbulent and disruptive and I wanted a career or some training to fall back on when I left so it was never a dream or a goal in life to serve in the military, it was just there as an escape from my childhood.

Since I left (in 2005), its always been fleeting thoughts of my experiences and my memories from that time, especially if someone asks me about it but it’s not really been much more.

Until I went back.

// Confronting the Past

In reality, I didn’t really spend much time at Blandford Camp (in the grand scheme of my service) but it was an important time as it was the first place I experienced military service and (in 1998) it was when Saving Private Ryan came out at the cinema so, as fresh 18 year olds with a thirst for adventure, it kinda just ‘fit’.

If you get the opportunity to visit the Royal Signals Museum (and I do recommend you go) then you actually have to get out of your car and grab a ‘pass’ from the guard room (as the museum is on the actual military camp) and that means walking past the guard house and to the guard office - both places where I’ve worked and stood in the rain.

It was at this moment that I took a wry smile to myself when I visited as I’d been there and done that and it was nice to go back and see it for what it was - it’s like when you go back to your primary school and you remember it being much bigger and grander than it actually is because you’re now grown up and when you sat in school, you were tiny and walking back through the camp, it was much less of a scary thing (and way less stressful).

I did visit the museum when I was there in 1998 and not much has changed.

Well, a few things have changed - there is now a exhibition devoted to Operation Telic (which was the second Iraq War) and it was this that made me stand and wonder for a while.

I worked on a radio system called ‘Ptarmigan’ - named after a bird and this old bit of kit was on display.

So many memories came flooding back - the repairs I carried out, the training we conducted, the military exercises we worked on - everything.

// Shame and Disconnection

I served in Iraq (x2), I did a long stint in Canada as a military instructor and I also spent 9 months of my life in the Falkland Islands (I was there when the twin towers went down) and none of this work ever filled me with a sense of ‘pride’. I was never actually happy carrying out this work which is where I think the sense of ‘shame’ came from.

One of the worst memories I have was preparing to cross the border from Kuwait into Iraq and there was (because we were about to invade) a real sense around the camp that Saddam was likely to use chemical weapons to repel our forces and so, we were instructed to sleep in gas masks (and work in them) for around 48hrs.

I doubt you’ve ever worn a gas mask - it’s much worse than one of those flimsy cloth mouth guards we wore during Covid as it’s a full face thing - to eat you have to hold your breath, lift the mask up and take a bite. To drink, you have a straw attachment which fits onto a military water bottle and you suck it through the gas mask. The actual straw within your mask just fits in your mouth and you end up chewing it.

All this, whilst in ridiculous desert heat and with the stress of trying to sleep (under your truck) and with the thought that you’re going to be driving into a war zone - one you’ve learned about from Saving Private Ryan effectively - it’s high stress and I hated it.

So when I left and people said I should be proud, I rejected that notion because I wasn’t proud of how I was treated, I wasn’t proud in how I reacted and I wasn’t proud in the whole experience.

But the experience of that, should not tarnish everything and thats what the museum tour gave me.

Thats where I realised that actually, the shame and discomfort I felt in those moments should not exclude me from embracing my other experiences and being proud of the training, the work I did elsewhere and actually owning that identity,

I’ve built up quite a healthy reputation I think, despite never embracing this military lifestyle and thats despite (in the early years) having a rather disconnected and fragmented sense of self.

// Reclaiming The Identity

Walking my kids around the exhibition (none of whom were alive when all this happened) and explaining the equipment, how it works, how I once got electrocuted because I didn’t follow the rules (they especially liked that story) and showing them the things I did - it felt liberating. It was like I was relinquishing this thing that I’d carried around with me for a long time.

I’ve always seen ‘being a veteran’ as someone who continues to wear some kind of military uniform - the men who walk around a town centre wearing combat trousers - and whilst I’ll never be one of those, the visit definitely gave me a new sense of renewed professionalism,.

I came away from the museum with two souvenirs (no, I didn’t rob them) - I bought a new laptop sticker with the emblem of the Royal Corps of Signals and I bought a green military T-Shirt, again with the Royals Signals emblem on it.

I also came away thinking that I should shave more, get my hair cut and iron all my clothes and whilst that might not happen I do feel a weird sense of elevation in my stature - I feel a little bit of pride in what I’ve done, what I achieved and I want to embrace that a little more.

// The Future

My time at Blandford Camp was brief, but it marked the beginning of my military journey and shaped my early perceptions of service.

Looking back, it’s clear that this experience was a foundational moment in my life - it sent the tone for everything that I’ve gone on to do and even if I didn’t fully embrace it at the time, I probably did enjoy a little bit of it. If you want to ask me about my military past, ask me about my 18th birthday party on this camp (I won’t write it here).

Revisiting these memories has reminded me of the importance of acknowledging all parts of our past, even those we’ve tried to forget.

Perhaps it’s time to reclaim this identity, not as something imposed by society, but as a part of who I am.

So, moving forwards, I probably will and I’ll probably become a little more professional and diligent in my behaviours (not too much though) - the sense of military pride I felt was strange but I liked it.