Poppies and poetry

In time for this year’s Remembrance Day, Mark Stibbe interviewed ex-British Army helicopter pilot Karl Tearney about learning to manage post-traumatic  stress disorder  (PTSD) through  writing poetry.

How long did you serve in the army?

I had always wanted to be a pilot when I was little, but I had a very difficult childhood and I left school without qualifications. In 1983, I joined the Army Air Corps at sixteen. I had to spend eight years as a soldier before training to be a pilot. I passed the pilot’s course in early 1993 and was a helicopter pilot for 24 years. I was really pleased to be a soldier and if I had my time all over, I would do the same again. Who doesn’t want to do the job they enjoy?

Yet you suffer from PTSD. What caused that?

My trauma developed over time. It stemmed back to my experiences in Bosnia; what I saw there was appalling. What made it far worse was that I couldn’t shoot or intervene when I saw atrocities taking place. At least in N...