How the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan are nonetheless claiming the lives of British heroes so a few years later… That’s why The Rifles regiment now has a novel workforce of ten ex-soldiers on name 24/7 to hurry to assistance from suicidal comrades

Dusk is closing in on Horse Guards, the ancient heart of the British military establishment. Lights twinkle along the old Admiralty building, while on the parade ground where Henry VIII once jousted, the equestrian statue of 1st Viscount Wolseley is fading into the gloom.

History abounds, but this is no museum. We sit in an elegant office that was once the inner sanctum of the Duke of Wellington and is now occupied by the current General Officer Commanding (London District).

I’ve been invited here to meet an even more senior officer to discuss the mental price that is paid long after battle is done.

Lieutenant-General Sir Tom Copinger-Symes wishes to challenge claims in recent newspaper reports made against the British Army’s largest infantry regiment, of which he is Colonel Commandant, that stated it had a fatal ‘problem’.

‘The statistics are very clear,’ the Lieutenant-General begins. ‘There is no disproportionate problem for The Rifles in terms of suicide, among either serving (riflemen) or veterans. Every single (death) is a tragedy, and we take them all very seriously. What (we do have), is a disproportionate level of effort in the Regiment, to try and fix these problems and address these issues.’

He is determined to prevent further peacetime loss of life among his fellow Riflemen.

It was the recent suicide of Rifles’ Serjeant Andrew Borthwick, and its impact on the regimental community and beyond, which led to this conversation.

Borthwick, whose funeral took place on Tuesday last week, served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Helmand, in 2009, he was shot through the chest, losing part of a lung. Refusing medical discharge, he recovered and did another tour of Afghanistan in 2013.

Since then, he had been one of the 120 Riflemen and Rifles’ officers attached to the 4th Battalion Ranger Regiment, part of the new Army Special Operations Brigade.

In short, Borthwick was an exemplary light infantry NCO.

Then, while at home in November last year, the father of three killed himself. He was 41.

‘Borth was given a second chance once, but life became too heavy in the end,’ a former comrade lamented online. ‘I wish he had known how much he meant to the lads, the impact he had on all of us, not only in the platoon but in the regiment, and how much he is missed.’

Former Army warrant officer Jim Wilde, of the pressure group Veterans United Against Suicide, told the Daily Mail on December 30: ‘There is a problem with the number of suicides in The Rifles, as the figures clearly show.

‘We have told the MoD and the government about this, but we have been ignored, and in the meantime the death toll from suicide continues to mount.’

Two days later, Wilde’s contention seemed to have been borne out even further. The Daily Mail understands another Rifleman took his own life on New Year’s Day, having learned of Borthwick’s passing. The dead men hadn’t served together, according to the regiment.

What can be extrapolated, other than a sharp reminder of the forgotten cost of already largely forgotten conflicts?

The measurement of Army suicide rates is not straightforward, simply because information is not readily available. For a start, there is no public database from which comparisons between deaths in different units can be made.

One can understand that a league table of regimental suicides is not desirable. Yet the disparate sources and methodologies used by veterans’ groups and official bodies to compile their own figures, often produce conflicting if not misleading results.

The challenge to produce accurate statistics is no more marked than in the case of The Rifles.

The Regiment is barely out of nappies, having been founded in 2007, with the amalgamation of the Royal Green Jackets, The Light Infantry, The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment and the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiments.

Yet, today, with four regular and three reserve battalions and a total strength of more than 3,800 soldiers, it’s the largest and arguably most important infantry regiment in the ever-diminishing British Army.

With its vast family tree festooned by more than 900 battle honours and 117 Victoria Crosses, The Rifles is also the most decorated regiment in the Army.

They even march faster than anyone else. And it is likely that more Riflemen – whose Colonel in Chief is Queen Camilla – have seen combat in the last quarter century than have soldiers from any other regiment. And, so it follows perhaps, more have died in battle.

On its inception, they were plunged into both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, sustaining more casualties than any other cap badge. Sixty two soldiers were killed across the two operations, according to figures given to the Daily Mail by the regiment.

This ‘baptism of fire’ would surely explain a spike in mental health issues but PTSD caused by combat is often only one contributing factor in military suicide cases. The Rifles told the Daily Mail that one in three of the Riflemen who have committed suicide had never been ‘on operations’.

Edgar Jones, Professor of the History of Medicine and Psychiatry at King’s College London, is an expert on the psychological consequences of modern warfare.

He explained: ‘The subject of suicide in the military and broader society is still, to some extent, considered taboo. It was not long ago that suicide was a crime and there is a residual stigma attached to it.

‘Those who are left behind after a death often struggle with difficult emotions like guilt and shame that perhaps they could have done more to help and possibly prevent it. (But) I’m not sure the military will ever be able to eliminate death by suicide and its fallout, because, by their very nature, the Armed Forces will always be exposed to combat and operational trauma.’

What can be done?

‘Swift intervention as close to the battlefield or as soon after as possible is important,’ says the professor. ‘It can mitigate shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD and prevent more serious problems on down the line. But it is not a guaranteed treatment.’

Factors such as social background and childhood experience can also be influential, he says.

Chloe Mackay, CEO of Combat Stress, says the military mental health charity offers support to 20,000 cases each year. Seventy per cent are veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan. British combat operations in the latter ended in 2014.

‘Veterans have a culture of tackling adversity and will carry on for a long time apparently holding things together on the surface,’ she says. ‘But the rest of their life is not so good.

‘We’re now in the middle of (an Afghan war-related) military mental health crisis, because on average it takes 14 years after their deployment for a soldier to come forward to Combat Stress. Fourteen years is a long time to live with that pain.’ Many simply ‘soldier on’ until they reach an existential crisis.

When a Rifleman stands on that precipice, Baz Melia hopes to have been given enough warning to physically reach their side.

‘My job is to stop suicide,’ says the retired Lieutenant-Colonel as he returns from another emergency ‘intervention’. ‘It matters not how many lives we save, it matters only about those we didn’t. In this last week, I stood with a grieving mum and dad at a funeral and then a set of parents of another soldier who died by suicide, at an inquest.

‘When they see me though they won’t have thought ‘how amazing’ that is, or how courageous the regiment is in tackling suicide. They will just see the man who didn’t save their child.’ Melia heads the Always a Rifleman Programme (AARP) which is a ground-breaking round-the-clock suicide prevention scheme, run and funded by The Rifles Regiment community. Their initiative is unique in the British Army.

AARP was founded in 2021, a year when military suicides spiked and even the then Rifles’ Colonel Commandant General Sir Patrick Sanders publicly admitted his own suicidal thoughts following a difficult tour of duty.

AARP has a 24/7 telephone helpline and a team of ten former Riflemen who are prepared to set off at a moment’s notice to reach a comrade who is struggling and at risk of self-harm. Every second counts. On one occasion Melia even had to deliver CPR, on arrival at a callout’s home.

‘Many of those who do take their own life have been through childhood trauma,’ he confirms. ‘But this is often overlaid with Domestic Adult Trauma such as cancer, family tragedy, divorce etc.

‘Operational trauma is simply the straw which breaks the camel’s back.’

He knows how difficult it is to leave the ‘bubble’ of Army life and return to chaotic Civvy Street.

‘Transitioning back to civilian life is tough,’ he says. ‘When any soldier is demobbed, they suddenly find themselves spinning any number of plates such as finding a job, paying a mortgage and feeding and clothing themselves. Also, learning to live back with your family puts a huge strain on domestic life.

‘Even if you have done a relatively low ten years-service when you come out you find society has moved on and you are relatively naïve compared to others who know how to play the system.’

When a death occurs, the AARP will try to contain the damage.

The worst-case scenario is that one suicide encourages another, as may have happened in the Borthwick case. This is ‘suicide contagion’.

‘One death will touch, on average, 250 other people,’ says Melia. ‘Each of them must be analysed, in particular, the 50 closest to any given serviceman.

‘As long as knowledge of that death stays within a relatively small circle of people in the military then we can keep relative control and work our way through the numbers and hopefully prevent one suicide turning into a cluster, because it is clinically proven that once a suicide is reported it can trigger others.’

He says the establishment of the AARP was ‘very brave, because it brought the issue out into the open (but) both the serving and veteran Rifles community resent this implication that we have a bigger problem than anyone else. ‘If anything, we have less of an issue.’

Suicide is not a single victim tragedy, of course.

The devastating long-term impact on loved ones is no more evident than in the case of Teresa Cole. Hers started as a love story across an ancient divide. Lance Corporal Jonny Cole was a soldier based in Northern Ireland; she was a Roman Catholic veterinary nurse from Co Fermanagh. They were married within six months.

Teresa was taken seriously ill after the birth of their first child, Katelin.

Jonny transferred from his previous unit to the newly-formed and Ulster-based, 2 Rifles, so that his wife could recover close to her family. Yet that meant he would also have to take part in one of the Army’s bloodiest tours of Afghanistan.

In Sangin, in 2009, he was tasked with collecting body parts after a Taliban IED killed five Riflemen and wounded many more. Shortly afterwards he was wounded in a rocket attack.

Jonny was airlifted home and treated in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham where, Teresa recalled to me, ‘Prince Charles suddenly appeared on the ward, shook Jonny’s hand and said, ‘Bloody good job.’ ‘

Then Jonny began to fall apart.

Two years later he was being treated for an attempted overdose, telling his wife: ‘I’m so sorry Teresa, but please let me die. You have to let me go.’

He was medically discharged from the Army in 2013, due to hearing loss. He had taken to drink, left Teresa and their two children – they also had a son, now 16 – and formed a new relationship and family.

In all, he made five suicide attempts. The sixth, in 2018, was successful. The AARP was still three years from being founded.

I met Teresa at her home in Enniskillen the following year.

Her life was in total disarray, and it would not be until 2023 that the inquest into her husband’s death was finally held. The findings were damning. The coroner ruled: ‘The deceased left the Army in 2013 without a diagnosis of PTSD. This was a failure.’ Last summer, she tells me, she had a ‘complete breakdown’.

She’s still fighting two legal actions. One is against the MoD and Nottingham Health Care Foundation Trust, for failure to properly diagnose her late husband’s PTSD.

The other against the MOD to get compensation for Jonny’s death. She thought she had won the latter, last autumn, when a tribunal in Belfast ruled she was eligible to a lump sum payment from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.

‘The tribunal head said she was sorry for my loss and how long it had taken to get justice,’ says Teresa. But then, just before Christmas 2025, Teresa received a letter saying that the MoD had appealed against the decision. The nightmare goes on.

‘I didn’t choose this, and I’m sure as hell if Jonny had been helped more, I would still have him,’ she tells me.

‘How much more do (the authorities) want me to endure?’ In what had been a difficult week – one funeral and an inquest, both of Riflemen who took their own lives in the past 13 months – The Rifles chose to share with the Daily Mail its internal statistics.

These are the ‘most accurate available’ and show that relative to its size, The Rifles is not an outlier in terms of military suicides.

Rifles Regimental Secretary, Peter Balls tells me there have been 44 suicides to the best of our knowledge since 2007.

Of these, 15 were serving soldiers and 29 were veterans. Four of the serving were reservists and five of the 44 had served in regiments that were merged to form The Rifles in 2007 but had not served in The Rifles itself.

In 2021 the Office for National Statistics carried out a – so far – unique study into suicides in the veteran community. In that year, the ONS measured 253 deaths. Of these, said Balls, only one was certainly from The Rifles. Another two, possibly. ‘That is not a high percentage.’

With the apparent inability of the MoD to provide the Daily Mail with a detailed breakdown of other units’ suicide rates, it’s impossible to calculate if such figures are high or not.

For perspective, the suicide rate among serving Army personnel remains significantly lower than in the general population.

What then do The Rifles statistics mean? Perhaps nothing more than that war destroys happiness. We must look after each other. And every self-inflicted death is a tragedy.

• For serving Riflemen, veterans, their dependents, or those from antecedent regiments, there is a dedicated help service provided by Always a Rifleman Programme available 24/7 for those struggling. They can call now on 0800 470 0941. 
• Additional reporting SIMON TRUMP