It’s the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War and I can still remember my thoughts at the moment I saw the islands for the first time.

As horizontal sleet blinded me on the forecastle of HMS Brilliant, braced against the howling wind and packed in multi-layers of clothing under my full foul weather gear, I thought;

“My God, they all died for this bloody place”.

The official conflict was long declared over by then time I arrived but the Falklands War was to have repercussions long after the final shots were fired.

Since 1982 more British servicemen who served in the Falklands conflict have committed suicide than were killed on the battlefields or in the ships anchored in bomb alley. Like the long civil conflict in Northern Ireland its events triggered mental illness and trauma that was to manifest itself years later. SSAFA Forces Help is still dealing with veterans from the Falklands War today. Often clients are still struggling with mental illness and the debilitating effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Tragically, you will find many Falklands veterans in prison where the violent mood swings caused by PTSD lands them in trouble with the criminal justice system.

Though the price that was paid for the recapturing of these remote and forbidding islands was high, for many veterans, the Falkland’s still represented the good old days of military conflicts. These were the days before Bosnia and Iraq when the UK armed forces were deployed to defend sovereign territory from foreign aggressors.

Now it seems they are deployed largely in defence of US foreign policy than British sovereignty.

In 1982, the Falklands conflict won the full support of the military top brass, the local population, the press and the vast majority of the general public. We all understood why those forces were going, what they were trying to achieve and when they had achieved it. It some senses it was a simple conflict.

It is hard to imagine Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse asking Mrs Thatcher to confirm for him that the effort to retain the Falkland Islands was legal, as defined by international law. The wily Admiral did not need to and no doubt would rather have been keel hauled than bring it up.

The real price of these less simple and dirty conflicts in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq has not yet been paid. The deaths and physical casualties are horrific enough but the mental casualties cannot be fully counted for many years yet.

Many of these casualties will turn to local caseworkers of charities like SSAFA Forces Help. Their volunteers give up their time and are unpaid. They claim only direct expenses for mileage, postage and telephone calls to clients. Even so, at local branch levels the money often looks like running out and caseworkers have to give up more of their days not to help clients but to rattle tins outside Tesco. They will never moan. They are not that sort. It’s not an exercise that makes them feel very highly valued though, I can tell you.

No doubt the 30th anniversary of the Falklands will be an excuse for the media to re-visit past glories and a few controversies. The heroes of that conflict deserve all the attention lavished upon them but I wonder how much airtime will be given to those veterans in prison. Or those condemned to a troubled life on medication with only charities to help out?

A former naval hero now in prison for rape and GBH or a commando leader who committed suicide in back- alley leaving his family bereft doesn’t fit the popular story angle.

Or will anyone contrast the moral case for the Falkland’s with the current crop of questionable military excursions into Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Popular myths are by their nature more attractive than reality but please remember the work of SSAFA Forces Help on this important anniversary.

Thirty years after the Falklands war ended they are still picking up the pieces.

Being a former Navy man I had never even heard of the military covenant until a few years ago, so I was fascinated to learn this week that it may be enshrined by parliament into English law.

Top brass in the Army and Royal British Legion are already heralding this announcement as a significant victory. Others are just grateful for any news that might make the plight of over-stretched service personnel and their families a little easier.

Many of those at SSAFA Forces Help on the front line of Kent’s Home Front are a little more sceptical and will wait and see what practical difference this makes to the real lives of service families and veterans across the county.

For those not familiar with the concept, the so called military covenant is all about Britain’s “duty of care” to its armed forces. It began as an informal pact between the army and society dating back to Tudor times and was formally codified as a formal covenant in 2000.

The current written code only refers to the army and amounts to little more than a lot of sugary good intentions and now this ill defined waffle is to be put into law.

Politicians are experts at saying a lot and doing little, particularly when it comes to the treatment of its armed forces and this announcement could represent a master stroke on their part.

Is this truly a sincere move to support the armed services and their families or just more cheap legislative public relations at its most cynical?

You might be surprised to learn how former service men and women are currently prioritised by the NHS, local authority housing officers, home office officials and local education authority jobsworths.

In short, they are not prioritised at all.

Indeed, in far too many cases, serving and former members of the armed forces feel they are being treated like second class citizens, regardless of their service records.

There was the case of a Gurkha veteran in Canterbury desperate for a kidney donor but the UK Border Authority refused to allow his sister a temporary visa on medical grounds, even with letters of support from SSAFA.

There was the case of the Northern Ireland veteran from Ashford who had been diagnosed with PTSD and OCD being made homeless with his wife and baby. He was told by his local housing officer he was not a priority.

There are the hundreds of veterans whose lives are being torn to pieces by the impact of PTSD waiting more than 6 months for their first appointment at Combat Stress. No wonder Kent’s prisons are stuffed full of mentally ill ex-soldiers.  

Only today I spoke to a young army Mum who urgently needed schooling for her children on arrival in Kent from Germany, while her husband was away serving in Afghanistan. Did she get any special help?

She didn’t get any help. Indeed, the LEA even admitted verbally that they had ignored their own school entry procedures.

The list goes on and on and it is hard to see how these real life examples across Kent will change overnight just because the government passes a law.

Will service families who are treated shoddily be able to sue the taxpayer for damages?

Will they flash their ID cards and jump the housing queue in front of single parents, refugees or the disabled?

I think not.

If the government is serious about its duty of care to the armed forces it could start by equipping them properly in the field or ceasing casual military intervention in questionable conflicts or even cancelling cuts of front line assets like HMS Ark Royal and the Sea Harriers.

It could try adequate funding of Combat Stress, which supports the growing number of veterans with combat related mental illness.

Please don’t insult the intelligence of the armed forces community with yet more gesture politics.

As one highly decorated former SAS Warrant Officer once told me, having fought for more than 3 years to obtain a war pension from the MOD;

“I don’t want any special favours. I just want what I am entitled to. Nothing more. Nothing less”.

One of the few frustrating things about working for SSAFA Forces Help is that so few people realise what the organisation is or what it does.

Its a bit like working for MI5 except the people are a lot nicer and they probably do a lot more good.

Last Friday afternoon, about 20 volunteer caseworkers seated themselves quietly around a large conference table at the St Peters Methodist Church Hall in Canterbury for a meeting of the Canterbury and Ashford division of SSAFA headed by Major Gerry Bartlett.

Gerry as always, is ably assisted by his trusty lieutenant, former RAF officer and coal miner Alan Thomas and veteran caseworker Blue Cooper provides the tea and biscuits.

It is the best opportunity you might get to discover what these volunteer caseworkers from SSAFA Forces Help are doing behind the scenes across the Canterbury and Ashford region and indeed across Kent and the rest of the UK.

Because, rather like the secret service, they prefer to keep things to themselves.

The head of the division’s special team for dealing with Gurkha welfare, William Platt, gave a brief overview of the 50 or so cases he and his three colleagues have handled over recent months.  On Saturday he and Jack Godley will hand over the keys to a rented house in Ashford for a 68 year old former Gurkha and his family who arrived from Nepal in August. Like most newly arrived Gurkhas taking advantage of the recent “Joanna Lumley” ruling they were homeless, penniless and largely clueless about how to get started with life in the UK.

William and his team were able to secure funding and a house for this desperate Gurkha family within 72 hours of the referral.

By the way, William also found time to give a personal briefing to Immigration Minister, Damien Green on the problems being caused by allowing former Gurkhas into the UK from Nepal but not putting in place any funding or infrastructure to help them when they arrive.

Treasurer, Graham Gregory-Smith, tells me that this division alone has already sourced £24,800 for local former Gurkhas this year alone, most of which comes from the Army Benevolent Fund.

William modestly admits that he is probably now spending over 20 hours a week on Gurkha cases.

It makes you wonder what might have happened to the 50 or so former Gurkhas and their families if William and his fellow caseworkers were not on hand to sort out emergency funding for their food and basic needs plus housing and other support?

And William is just one of the caseworkers in the division each handling anything up to 6 or 10 cases at any one time. From helping a depressed former soldier struggling with PTSD to sourcing a mobility scooter for a disabled WW2 veteran.

And you might be surprised to know how much William and his fellow case workers are paid for this vital work on the front line of welfare for former servicemen or women and their families?

Nothing.

In fact, even the travel expences that all caseworkers can claim (and many do not) has been suspended for the last few weeks because the division is so short of funds.

And they keep that a secret too.