The experience of most civilians feels very distant from life in uniform. That is inevitable. Society asks a select few to put their lives in danger so that the many can go about their business untroubled.
But that detachment must never lead to neglect. Shamefully, that is what has happened in the case of injured soldiers treated in degrading conditions at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham. Shocking letters revealed today by The Observer expose the desperate poverty of care they receive. The injured, their friends and families have had to plead for respect and dignity. Their treatment is insulting, a breach of the unwritten contract between a society and its military defenders.
Selly Oak is an ordinary NHS hospital in which one ward is dedicated to military personnel. The overwhelming majority of combat casualties are treated alongside civilians in standard wards around the country. This arrangement is a long-standing source of anger in the forces. But the importance of special facilities for uniformed patients is poorly understood in Westminster. Since soldiers and civilians have the same anatomy, why should they not share the same resources?
The answer is twofold. First, combat injuries, as compared to average hospital admissions, are disproportionately serious and painful, often leading to career-ending disability and lifelong trauma. Second, soldiers are used to functioning in self-contained military environments. It is part of the process that builds essential loyalty, trust and camaraderie.
Transition to civilian life can be stressful and disorienting. To foist it on a bedridden combat casualty is not just unreasonable, it is cruel. Some hospitalised soldiers have been subjected to abuse from civilians who, disapproving of the Iraq war, direct their anger at the uniformed scapegoats on their ward.
Soon, there will be no military hospitals left in Britain. That is a result of budget cuts, justified by Cold War detente and the diminished likelihood of mass mobilisation. The Ministry of Defence was right to judge that it could not afford hospitals of its own, but in failing to fund dedicated wards at a time when British forces were being sent into combat, it has shown a terrible lack of foresight.
Underlying this is a wider political failure. The government has been quick to use military power in the pursuit of foreign policy goals. Regardless of the arguments over whether it has been right to do so, it was foolish not to think through the consequences for servicemen and women. When battle fronts are opened, casualties must be expected and provision for them made. Those casualties cause discomfort for the leaders who sent them into battle.
Politicians are tempted not to talk about them, to wish they were invisible. But they are not. In the months and years ahead, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will come home. They must be received with respect. But Britain has a poor record of looking after its veterans. Too many end up poor, drug- and alcohol-dependent, unemployed or homeless.
Conditions at Selly Oak suggest that this disgraceful pattern will continue. But it is not too late to signal a change. More wards, under military management, must be dedicated to war casualties. Standard NHS restrictions on visiting times for injured personnel and their families must be lifted.
Above all, soldiers and veterans must not be caught up in political arguments about the wars they have fought. Whatever the outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan, our armed forces are bravely fulfilling their special duties abroad. They expect and deserve special treatment at home.
