Unless you have been there you will never know how it makes you feel.
A patrol will start with a briefing, you will receive an intelligence update which will include IRA and UVF attacks that have happened that week. You will also get told what the threat is, it maybe a sniper, bomber or civil unrest, that’s ok you have been exercised on all of them in Lydd, Hythe or Sennelager. You then get your patrol orders, this again will highlight the threat, and depending where you are heading to, information on the known players (terrorists) operating in that area.
You leave the camp through various exit points your eyes the size of saucers and you’re absolutely shitting yourself! You are on the surface calm, professional and proud. But inside you are crapping it. You are scanning every face, every window, every door way, loose brick, pile of rubbish, car, every thing that could be used as a sniper position or a place to hide an IED (bomb). But it is all ok you have been trained to deal with it all; you have had the rules, you have done the exercises and seen the training videos.
Except it is not ok, because you are only 19 and Belfast looks like Chatham and Londonderry looks like Manchester and Fermanagh feels like the Brecon Beacons. The girls look like they do at home, that woman screaming at you looks like your Aunty Mary and the old man who has just called you a prick reminds you of your Grandad. Then it happens... and you react, you just ****ing react!!!
Afterwards you never expect the democratic pillars that you chose to protect as a teenager, to turn on you for your reaction that day many, many years ago; you know who I mean the government, the judiciary and the media, but they all do!!!
But you know deep down inside that unless they have done it, unless they have been there they will never ever know! The very fact that they have questioned your reaction on that day when you were still just a boy, proves that they will never know!