Veterans Vow: We Will Wn The War

Veterans Vow: We Will Wn The War

- Tony Whitfield

Injured veterans are returning to the frontline in the battle to beat coronavirus as they pledge: “It is a war we will win.”

Across the UK, ex-servicemen and woman are joining NHS and care service staff to help the country fight its greatest challenge since the Second World War.

From setting up and running the Nightingale hospitals to working in care homes, they are stepping up once again to serve their country in its hour of need.

One recruit is former warrant officer second class Mark “Lofty” Taylor, 52, who has been instrumental in turning London’s Excel exhibition centre into the country’s first Nightingale hospital.

Running the new facility as operations manager is like a tour of duty, he says, with strong camaraderie amongst those working and volunteering there.

Lofty, who is also an ambassador for the veterans’ charity Help for Heroes, said: “I sat down in the first few days of lockdown worrying about what I was going to do.

“I needed to do something and I thought there must be something I can do to again help the country.” He had served 25 years in an infantry regiment until the deaths of two comrades in Iraq in 2004 triggered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This resulted in a suicide attempt, the collapse of his marriage and his medical discharge from the Armed Forces.

Describing how he helped get the new hospital up and running in east London, he said: “It was like the chaos of war.

“If you imagine trying to mobilise and supply thousands of troops in the battlefield, it takes time.

“It has really surprised me how well the NHS has been able to pull this off, the whole NHS has turned itself on its head.