by Jason Fox
I was also without the mental tools needed to operate effectively as a civilian. As I’d prepared to leave the base, it had been mentioned that there were courses for me to attend, programmes focused on transitioning to a job away from the Marines. They promised to teach me the techniques needed to successfully apply for a new job, or even to write a CV and covering letter. But my enrolment was optional, so given an easy way out I’d turned my back on the offer. It was a stupid move. My only priority had been to escape the stress of military life, when really I’d needed somebody to say, ‘Mate, look, you really need to take this stuff seriously. It’ll help you in the long run.’ I was slipping through the net and nobody was on hand to catch me. Nobody questioned the wisdom of my negative decisions.
It wasn’t the fault of the Marines, though. I couldn’t blame them for allowing me to retreat from their world. And with an ever-expanding and hidden war raging across the Middle East, I was the least of the British military’s worries. And I only had myself to blame when the curtains of self-delusion were finally pulled away.
21
Spring 2013
What would it be like to fall?
The heavy tide frothed and churned below me as I peered 150 feet down from the cliff’s edge at the jagged rocks and battleship-grey waters, the English Channel thrashing against the Devon coast in a stormy tantrum. Heavy winds and sideways rain buffeted my face. Everything was different, but the same. Months after leaving The Brotherhood I had a new office job, a changing life, but I was still endlessly miserable. The polished shoes I’d been wearing for work were now muddy and damp. My suit jacket and tie had become soaked through with water and sea mist, the uniform to a career I hated sticking to my skin. I fucking despised those clothes.
It was cold, the air felt wintry, but my personal calendar was sketchy back then and pinning an exact day, or month, to my lonely death wish was impossible. Could it have been April? May? Maybe. I honestly had no idea, but it was evening and the light was still dimming over the horizon, so it was probably near to being late spring. So very little of note had taken place since becoming a civilian a year previously that clinging to any snippets of happiness, or satisfying events, for reference was impossible. The happenings that most people used for orientation, like birthdays, weddings, parties or notable football results, had been muddled by depression. The only glimmer of hope in that time was the birth of my second child, but the joy from that moment was soon overwhelmed. Meanwhile, the monotony of a life away from the military was a confusing blur of soul-crushing routine: wake, work, sleep, repeat. Wake, work, sleep, repeat. Over, and over, and over. My eyes brimmed with tears. My chest tightened under the stress. Throwing myself off the edge would end the pain I’d sucked up for the best part of three years, all those dark thoughts and periods of worthlessness finished forever, my loneliness gone. One jump and it was done, merciful and quick – please, let it be quick – my collision with the rocks killing me in a split second, the tide sucking me to the bottom forever.
What would it be like to fall?
I had often imagined the scenario, even during times when I’d been really happy and fulfilled, before the onset of PTSD and chronic burnout. But hadn’t we all, if we’re really honest? Most people admit to having stood near to the edge of a railway station platform as a fast-moving train has hurtled through, their thoughts turning darkly to the final possibility: Mate, what’s to stop me from jumping forward? It was a perverse flight of fancy, the human condition testing its resolve for survival in an everyday situation, but on that clifftop I had consciously sought out a spot for suicide rather than being presented with an unexpectedly dangerous scenario. But could I do it? I definitely wanted to, I felt compelled. I was weak. Brittle. My spirit had been crushed and the resolve I’d shown throughout my toughest moments in jungle training, or during the harshest of battles, had retreated. With no purpose, there seemed very little point – I had failed as a fighter, a father, a son and a friend. The self-pity I’d hated seeing in others was now all over me like an angry burn.
I might as well die here.
Who would give a crap anyway?
I’m a waste of air.
So, what would it be like to fall?
Six months earlier
I’d been in Andy Leach’s air-conditioned office for twenty minutes before realizing he was actually going to offer me a job – a proper job, my first ever civilian contract as a project manager, not that I’d known what the role had even entailed. Very little of what Andy was saying had actually made sense to me. I’d listened to his sales pitch about the company and how Sodexo was delivering all sorts of ‘exciting services’ and infrastructure assistance to all sorts of businesses, such as the deployment of manpower and equipment to work sites. Some of them had even been linked to the Royal Navy, so I would at least have a little connective tissue to my old gig. There was talk about my responsibilities, how it was a great chance to earn some decent money, all of it explained in a way I didn’t really understand, with details on regulatory breaks and expense forms. Andy talked and I sipped on a cup of coffee and nodded, fidgeting uncomfortably in my smart suit while looking around his office, noticing the kitbag and weaponry of his position: a computer, his plastic letter trays stuffed with paper and folders, and a cupboard of stationery. It was so different from wearing a backpack weighed down with all manner of firepower, or a combat vest, the scrapping gear I’d worn on some missions. Maybe one day I’d have a similar desk, working as an MD of a big firm like this one, I thought. Then I heard Andy’s concluding proposition.
‘Look, Foxy, this isn’t the right job for you,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to give it to you anyway because people in the military have vouched for your skills and the reputation you carry. So take it for what it is – a money earner. You can learn from it and make some forward steps into corporate work.’
I shook Andy’s hand and smiled. Somehow, I had landed myself a position with sick pay, holiday leave and all sorts of benefits. I even had a company car. I was to be announced as a project manager in a large firm working along the south coast and throughout the Home Counties. I understood that I would be in charge of the logistical side and I would be working with auditors and drivers. It wasn’t a line of work that moved at the high tempos I had been used to, and the company employees weren’t as fiercely motivated as The Brotherhood, but Andy was right. It was a way of earning good money while finding my feet, even though I’d hardly applied myself to seeking out a new vocation, not with any real enthusiasm, anyway.
So how had it come to this?
Fed up with working as a bar hand and in need of a serious pay upgrade, I began sniffing around for a new career. Not that it was easy. Applying for jobs with covering letters and a CV wasn’t something I’d ever done before and I was clueless about the process (thanks to ignoring the parachute courses on offer in the Navy). I wasn’t sure if mentioning some of my later covert military work on application forms was even allowed, given its secretive nature. Eventually I added it into the section marked ‘Employment History’, and during my first (flunked) interview the guy on the other side of the desk read out the job description and my specialist qualifications. He looked at me quizzically.
‘Hmm … That all sounds really cool, like something out of a James Bond film,’ he said, unsure of what to do with the information. ‘But what is it?’
I’d heard of a lot of blokes leaving the military who were landing cool jobs, usually within security firms or personal protection roles, by manipulating their military experience and applying it to areas outside the Army or Navy. Some of them had even become bodyguards for Hollywood superstars and A-list pop singers, but my head was in such a mess that I often became overwhelmed when imagining how I should apply the skills I’d learned in war to a civilian environment. I knew I didn’t want to work in personal security. It paid good money and a lot of the people I’d spoken to had loved it, but I’d listened to their horror stories as well. Blokes I knew felt unc
omfortable as they became closer to the people they were protecting. It wasn’t uncommon for them to be doing jobs that were out of their remit, like wandering around Sainsbury’s for the weekly shopping, or carrying the kids’ Transformers rucksacks on the school run. Is that what an ex-soldier with a serious amount of experience was really supposed to be doing?
The fact I’d been struck off from the military with mental health issues also meant I was unable to apply for a lot of the professions that might have benefited from my experience and strengths, such as the fire service or police force. At times I was reminded of a scene from the movie Rambo: First Blood, in which a battle-bruised Vietnam vet, played by Sylvester Stallone, breaks down in a civilian environment that doesn’t understand him. ‘Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million-dollar equipment,’ Rambo says, emotionally unloading on his former Army mentor, Colonel Sam Trautman. ‘Back here I can’t even hold a job parking cars!’ The fear I might eventually experience a similar fate chilled me.
Like a lot of lads who had left the military in a hurry, I’d started to flap, with no idea of what I should have been doing for work, while the little money I had left in the bank drained away. Despite the urgency of my situation, when it came to hunting for a job I struggled to move with speed or purpose. Summoning the energy for self-promotion and networking felt like a waste of time. Not long after leaving the base, a mate of mine, Mark, had invited me to London for a couple of days. Our plan was to meet with various recruitment types and industry headhunters, people with a track record for finding work for lads who had previously served at a high level in the military. But when it came to selling my abilities, I clammed up. I didn’t want to talk about my past with anyone who hadn’t moved in the same line of work as myself – the people I didn’t understand. Painting a picture of my experience and skills to complete strangers felt weird and I couldn’t be arsed with the chit-chatting or small talk. That wasn’t a new sensation. It had happened on previous social occasions, such as when I’d been hanging around with Sarah and her friends shortly after my final tour. Back then I’d put my reticence down to unfamiliarity with the people I was with. I’d wanted to blow off steam with the military crowd instead of a group I didn’t really know, but my social insecurity was another symptom of PTSD. Cut loose in the civilian world, I now couldn’t even muster the enthusiasm to talk to people who wanted to shape my future. If somebody asked me about the work I’d been involved in previously, I inevitably mumbled something about being in the Marines for a little bit. Then I’d change the subject.
‘I did some stuff here and there,’ I’d say, shrugging my shoulders, deflecting the spotlight away from another life.
It must have sounded so underwhelming, when instead I should have been listing the skills and achievements of an impressive career.
Jason Fox: Royal Marine Commando, team leader able to succeed under extreme pressure, determined, committed, proficient in mission planning and job execution, able to learn from mistakes and react accordingly. Say hello to your next Employee of the Year.
Finding the minerals required to big myself up was impossible, and on the train home, after two days of frustration and dead-end chats in the City, Mark had a pop at me.
‘Foxy, you’ve got to talk!’ he snapped. ‘Look around, mate. Everyone on this train would probably tell you how good they are at what they do. Whether they’re actually any good or not is beside the point, they’ll still bloody tell you that they are. You don’t need to be in people’s faces, but when someone asks, “What did you used to do?” – get it out there!’
He was right, but his advice seemed to have been delivered in another language. I was unresponsive.
I became just as withdrawn at home and the relationship with my partner had become so toxic that we were drifting apart, often living separate lives. Whenever I returned from another job interview or blind-alley meeting she would head upstairs, remaining out of sight for the entire evening. I stayed in the living room, usually with a bottle of wine, staring at the telly, knocking back glass after glass, not wanting to join her in bed. Sometimes I might stumble across a war film and watch the action, the battle scenes bringing up old feelings, delivering a reassuring sense of sadness. For a long while my emotions had been hardened by combat. I was able to repress what was going on internally. Away from the military, I found myself able to enjoy the softer side of my personality. Watching battle films – movies such as Saving Private Ryan or The Hurt Locker – drew on a seam of melancholy that was previously untapped, but in an unusual way. I related to the action taking place on screen; I understood the complex relationships between the soldiers in an admittedly stylized Hollywood gunfight, and it created a swell of nostalgia for The Brotherhood, one that I soon found upsetting. I realized I was missing the lads more than ever and I longed for the camaraderie. Sometimes I’d find it hard to watch a war film through to the very end.
Given my emotional turbulence, it was a miracle I’d managed to land myself a job at all. But a mate at home had mentioned Andy Leach, the chief executive of Sodexo, a bloke with a previous career as a Naval logistical officer – or a blanket-stacker as I jokingly called him – and an employer with a habit of drawing ex-military types into his business. Something about him had piqued my interest. He had visited the bar I’d been working at on the Devon coast and asked me whether I’d be interested in joining the firm.
I nodded, though I knew it was important to be truthful about my departure from active service. I didn’t want Andy to be under any illusions about what he was potentially taking on.
‘I’ve been struck off with PTSD, depression and chronic burnout,’ I said, detailing the horrific incidents that had resulted in my eventual medical discharge. I told him about my angry streak and sleeping troubles. ‘I definitely need an opportunity to get myself sorted, but I don’t really know what to do.’ With hindsight, I was probably a little too honest. But Andy nodded. He seemed to understand.
‘I can’t give you an environment anywhere near to what you used to work in,’ he said. ‘But the company has a structure that looks after Navy and marine contracts, so there are people and situations you might be familiar with. Taking a halfway step back, but into the military environment again, on the services side … That could be a start for you.’
Weeks later, I was dressed in a new suit, feeling excited as I stepped towards the unknown. I drove to work in my company car, walking into a plush office for my first day as a project manager for Sodexo, a company with a nationwide staff of 70,000 people. I announced to myself that the job would make me a corporate success, when in truth the idea of working there hadn’t really flicked my switch in the slightest. Instead, I had set down an emotional IED, packed with self-delusion, one that I would step on over and over and over again.
22
Six weeks earlier
‘I wanted to stab him,’ I said, swigging on a pint, several beers in that night. After a long day in the office, a simmering anger had frothed over into a boozy rant. But I’d gone too far.
Andy winced. ‘You can’t do that, Foxy!’ he snapped.
I knew what he was thinking, as the pair of us sat in the local boozer, downloading about another infuriating week – that I was unstable and hot-headed, which was probably right and I could almost see the question sketched across his face. Is he dangerous? Andy was probably picturing the worst-case scenarios too. The blood on his office floor. A dead employee – me looming over the still-warm corpse while holding a gore-covered letter opener. Might Foxy actually do it?
I laughed it off. ‘I’m kidding, mate, I don’t want to stab him really …’
The problem with working in an industry as regimented and perfectionist as the Royal Navy, particularly at its sharpest point, was that I found it impossible not to become annoyed with the staff working within the corporate setting of Sodexo. Some of the people there clearly couldn’t give a toss about the required work ethic. I’d watch as peopl
e screwed up and then shifted the blame on to something, or somebody, else entirely, rather than raising their hand and admitting to a balls-up. People lied, cut corners and ignored rules. They promised to act on orders and then failed to deliver. (It seemed to me that this condition was contagious in the job; I feared that I would eventually succumb to the same attitude.) Sometimes instructions were disregarded entirely, and it did my head in. And all the while, life moved at an infuriatingly slow pace. From my crappy desk with my own computer, a plastic letter tray overflowing with paperwork and folders, and boxes and boxes of stationery, I became disillusioned in no time at all.
Andy had been right. Some elements of the job were similar to my previous role, but only vaguely and the link was tenuous at best. I was now attending meetings where we discussed how to best deploy assets, but they involved lorries and manpower rather than the tools needed to plan an attack, or where to set up surveillance cameras. At Sodexo there was all sorts of paperwork to deal with, and I was familiar with that form of rigmarole too, having experienced it within the military when requesting equipment or calling upon assistance from another wing of the war machine. And just like the corporate environment, those requests had been subjected to the machinations of office politics.
As with Sodexo there were endless meetings. Despite our heavy schedules, during war we worked through briefing after briefing after briefing, and a team leader like me went through more than most. My role required me to get up early every morning, regardless of whether or not I’d been on a frantic night operation. I’d first train in the base’s gym, which was amazing: there was a space for the British, one for the Yanks, another for the Canadians, all of them carrying state-of-the-art equipment, and I was able to sweat out any frustrations. After my workout session I’d take a dirt bike to the office. The people I worked with were like Millwall to my mind – no one liked us and we didn’t care – our lines placed miles away from everyone else. Once the rest of my team had arrived for work, the briefings began: our target, or targets, and their location were discussed, then what was required for us to complete our mission.