In remembrance of the ex-servicemen and women who ended up homeless | Alex Andreou

Rolfe’s life collapsed after serving in Bosnia and Iraq. His story of a life collapsing after military service is all too common

Rolfe looked like the sort of person you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. And yet that is exactly where I ran into him. He occasionally slept in the alley next to the commercial building in which I took discreet refuge while dispossessed.

Rolfe had worked out how to work the cane bolt which gave access to the alley from the outside. At a towering six feet, four inches – his size enhanced by layers of secondhand coats and threadbare blankets – the first time I ran into him, I was frightened. His face was obscured by matted hair, dirt and scrapes. After a few days, we began to silently acknowledge each other with a small nod of the head.

One February morning, I looked out the window and saw Rolfe covered with snow. I was certain he was dead. He was not, but from that point onwards, on nights when the weather was particularly cold, I would leave the door to a storage area at the back of the building slightly ajar for him. He would sneak in, rest a while and disappear by dawn. In time, we started to share what little food we had, at first silently. Later, we started to share stories.

Rolfe had been in the military all his adult life. He had served in Bosnia and twice in Iraq. The second Iraq conflict left him disillusioned and traumatised, for reasons he wouldn’t share and at which I could only guess. After leaving the forces, his life collapsed. The small resettlement grant he received lasted a very short time. He spoke of booze, anger, depression and family breakup. He spoke of his inability to cope with ordinary “civvy” pressures. Rolfe had spent all his life in the bosom of his family, then straight into the structured care of his unit. He had never dealt with rent or bills or finding a job or the local council; he had never chosen a utility or phone service; never made a household budget, shopped or cooked for himself; never negotiated the maze the rest of us navigate daily without thinking. He could survive in the desert under enemy fire, but was lost when it came to getting a TV licence. He ended up an alcoholic, sleeping rough.

Rolfe is, sadly, far from unique. Cautious estimates suggest that former armed forces personnel make up 6% of homeless individuals. They are more likely than others to brave sleeping rough because of their training and less likely to seek help. In the past two years, in Scotland alone, more than 2,000 veterans are registered as homeless after leaving the military. Over a fifth of serving personnel report common mental disorders. A staggering 13% suffer from alcoholism. Roughly 10% of the prison population have served in the military, often jailed for violent …read more