We are all HM Armed Forces Veterans at the Project and we are doing this for those of our Brothers & Sisters In Arms who were injured in the theatre of war.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a killer and is a brain trauma injury. It can also creep up when you least expect. Volunteer Veterans waiting to answer calls is vital. It's when lives are saved, at the point when they are undecided on what to do.
Traditionally the M.O.D. have not accepted mental health as something they are responsible for until a landmark case was won in the High Court by the wife of a veteran who committed suicide due to the pain he was suffering as a result of PTSD.
This opened the entire subject up and changed how the Armed Forces would treat those with Combat Stress, Battle Fatigue, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any of the other terms used commonly to describe what has always been a problem but was never accepted or discussed.
We were trained to never leave a man behind, but it's not the training that makes us do this, it's the brotherhood for those we have never met before and may never meet at all, but who have walked a mile in our boots, as we have in theirs.
It's an unbreakable bond and we will do this for as long as we're needed. There seems to be an increase not decrease and that could be to do with the awareness being raised.
We are a Good Cause with a difference. We are almost unique in the sector because not only do we work for free, not one of the volunteer veterans has EVER made a claim to the organisation to be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses and we have also totally self-funded any training and ongoing professional development that we have decided to partake in.
We have a model for the future that we believe is the future of the charitable sector.