Hell of highest-ranking soldier hit by I PUT A GUN TO MY HEAD
HAUNTED by flashbacks, Col Philip Ingram held a pistol to his head and slowly squeezed the trigger.
Ingram, the Army’s highest ranking officer to suffer from PTSD, had hit the wall as the pressure cooker hell of Iraq extracted a cruel toll.
He was “micro seconds” from ending it once and for all.
But then an image of his father entered his head. And he thought about the mess, literally the bloody mess, his suicide would create – and the demoralising effect it would have on his men. Carefully, he released the trigger. Father-of-two Ingram, 53, reveals the traumatic incident today in his first newspaper interview – in which he also tells how he used to keep a “suicide kit” of sleeping pills within arm’s reach.
He speaks out to support the Sunday People’s campaign for proper support for soldiers and veterans suffering post traumatic stress disorder.
Ingram – who reached the rank of Colonel and was awarded the MBE – has been contacted by former colleagues forced to suffer in silence amid fears they will lose their careers if they admit to having mental health issues.
Loaded
The ex-intelligence Corps officer criticises the Ministry of Defence for “appalling treatment” of colleagues suffering with their mental health.
Recalling his own crisis in 2005, he said: “One evening I sat in my chair in my office with the intention of cleaning my pistol. But instead I loaded it, pressed the gun to the side of my head and slowly squeezed the trigger.
“I felt a sense of calm. I no longer felt exhausted and I was convinced I was doing the right thing.
“Then an image of my father entered my head and I stopped. I looked at the wall behind me and thought this is going to make a real mess and I don’t want my soldiers dealing with that.
“I came close to killing myself many more times on that tour but I never quite had the will to pull the trigger.”
He had developed stressinduced depression following the collapse of his marriage and the demands of being the Army’s senior intelligence officer in Iraq.
Ingram, who lives in Birmingham, was consumed with guilt over the death of men under his command.
He added: “We lost 13 people on tour and I took every death personally, as a failure of intelligence. I felt huge guilt. A few months earlier, my very good friend Major Matt Bacon had been killed in an IED attack. Matt had been travelling to see me while I was on a recce in Iraq. I’d only been in the country two days when he was killed. It was devastating and I took his death very personally.” Back in the UK he had an interview with a senior officer who concerns about Ingram’s welfare, but then did nothing more. Two years later Ingram was diagnosed with stressinduced depression by a military doctor and was placed on medication.
Although he was promoted to Colonel after returning from Iraq, his career stalled and he contemplated suicide daily – “almost every hour’.
He added: “I made a suicide kit – a small bottle of sleeping pills which I knew would kill me if I took them. I used to get very agitated if they were more than an arm’s length away.
“Before I left the Army in 2010 I had an interview with the Adjutant General. When I asked what help I could expect to get once I was a civilian he handed me a very old list of military charities and basically said ‘this is it’.
“It struck me that if someone of my rank could not get proper help and treatment what chance did a very junior soldier have? So I made an official complaint to the Army Board. They said they would look into it and later agreed that my treatment wasn’t good and promised to investigate, but I heard no more.
“The MOD are in denial about the size of the problem. Many former colleagues from corporals to sergeants, majors and colonels have been in touch to tell me they are also suffering from what they believe might be PTSD. Some have taken their own lives.”
Ingram told how for years he strugnoted gled to deal with flashbacks about three incidents... Matt’s death, the episode with the pistol and seeing terrorists flee with a body part after downing a helicopter. He was eventually diagnosed with PTSD in 2014. But he now believes he had suffered since 2005 and slammed the Army for not assessing him then. Thankfully, therapy has worked for him. He has recovered, has remarried and added: “I wouldn’t say that I’m cured, but the old Phil is back.” The MOD did not comment on Col Ingram but said it takes the mental wellbeing of all personnel seriously.