The first open day for the veterans mental health society Combat Stress is coming to Manchester this Saturday!
We would like to invite you to the first Manchester Combat Stress open day, which is being held in honour of the Veterans mental health charity Combat Stress. It is a day where the people of South Manchester can show their support and appreciation for our Veterans, their families and those in the mental health services, who are working in the front line to assist those, whose mental health has been effected as a result of their service in the British armed forces.
The South Manchester Combat Stress open day promises to be an informal event where a variety of stalls, information stands and accessories will be available to the public, with a Combat Stress Café also being located on site, where refreshments can be purchased, with all proceeds raised on the day going to benefit the year long “Enemy Within Appeal” , which was launched by the Prince of Wales at St. James's Palace in March.
The reasons why we would like your support on the day is because:
Founded in 1919, Combat Stress is the leading UK charity specialising in the care of Veterans’ mental health. Over the last 90 years Combat Stress have supported almost 100,000 Veterans of every campaign that British Forces have been involved in since the First World War.
Combat Stress have a current caseload of over 4,300 ex-Service men and women. This includes 400 who served in Iraq and 102 who have served Afghanistan. The youngest Veteran in receipt of care is just 20 years old and the oldest is 103.
On average it takes over 14 years from Service discharge for Veterans to make the first-step approach to Combat Stress for help, by which time their condition is often highly complex. Of the Veterans taken on by Combat Stress as clinical cases since 2005, 75% suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Of these, 62% have a co-morbid presentation of depression and alcohol disorders.
On 11 January 2010 Combat Stress signed a partnership agreement with the MoD and the Department of Health, resulting in an overarching investment of £350,000.This will help fund Combat Stress staff to work directly with NHS mental health Trusts within Manchester and the North West to ensure that the services they provide are accessible to and appropriate for military Veterans.
The Manchester Combat Stress Open Day will take place on Saturday 7th August between 11 am - 4 pm and is being held at the St. Barnabas Church on Hardy Lane, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester. For more information please e-mail
manchestercombatstress@yahoo.co.uk and for more information on the work of Combat Stress nationally please visit the website 
http://www.combatstress.org.uk 
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they still suffer
02.08.2010 23:36
This is a famous poem from the great Wilfred Owen about such experiences.
Strange Meeting
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said that other, "save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For of my glee might many men have laughed
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we have spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with the swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . . ."
defender