Paul experienced flying with Aerobility at Warriors at Wallop – flying day for wounded, injured and sick service personnel. 

Army veteran Paul, 60, explains how flying with Aerobility has given him a life changing sense of freedom. 

I joined the Royal Signals in 1976, as a combat radioman and spent virtually all of my military career with infantry units in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. 

In 1979 I volunteered to do an EOD tour, working the electronic equipment behind bomb disposal. On his first shout, my best friend, Paul Reece, got blown up. My first shout was to go out and deal with the remains of his body and deactivate other explosive devices around it.  

In total, I ended up doing six combat tours in Northern Ireland and a two-year undercover tour. That ended on 6 December 1982 when I returned to Belfast and went out for a drink at the Droppin Well pub, with the guys I’ve been working with. I lost 11 friends that night when a bomb went off. 

After that, I went into a spiral of depression and anxiety and found myself volunteering for crazy, high-risk jobs. At the time I had no idea how ill I was and nobody talked about PTSD.  

I face the after effects of trauma every day. 

When I was finally discharged from the army in 1990, I  floated meaninglessly from job to job. Nothing got better, and everything went downhill. In 2011, everything came to a head and everything went wrong for me. I couldn’t cope any longer and ultimately decided to seek help. 

Flying gives me freedom from constant anxiety and everything that comes with PTSD. 

I got involved in psychological welfare and I was diagnosed with complex PTSD. I thought that was the solution to the way I was feeling, that a name and a diagnosis would be the end of it. But the effects of untreated PTSD were far reaching – a brain scan showed that I had suffered permanent brain injury as a result.  

I can no longer tell whether my mind is making stuff up or whether it’s really happening and I have a reason to be anxious – my fight or flight instinct is constantly on high alert. I will be on medication for the rest of my life to correct the imbalances in my brain. I still have nightmares and depression and spiralling anxiety are still very real things for me.  

 I’ve finally found a place where I can be completely calm – in the cockpit of an aeroplane. 

I recently had my first flying experience with Aerobility at Warriors at Wallop, a flying day designed specifically to help wounded, injured and sick service personnel experience freedom. For 30 minutes, I was in the plane controlling it – there was too much to think about to think about my own problems. I was so, so pleased with how it went – it offered total liberation from my brain injury and all the problems it causes on a daily basis.  

I want to thank Aerobility and everyone involved in making the day happen. I loved it. 

I don’t want anyone, veteran or otherwise, to go to the dark places I’ve been to and suffer what I have.  

Now I want to move forward and help other people. 

I’m hoping to get a scholarship and learn to fly – not only so I can experience the freedom of the skies more often, but so that I can show others what is possible, and that there is a future after trauma.