British, American and Israeli Veterans Unite

When therapy did not seem to be the answer for veteran Billy MacLeod MBE’s struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, he looked for his own route to healing. He reflected on when he was happiest – his time in the British army – and realised he wanted to help veterans who were feeling like him. “I believe to move forward, you have to have purpose,” he says. “If you don't have purpose, you'll just stay as you are.”

And so this year, MacLeod is leading a groundbreaking expedition bringing together British, American and Israeli veterans – a journey across Europe marking VE Day and exploring the traumas and triumphs of war.

The former soldier, a sapper in the Royal Engineers who fought in the Falklands War, set up the UK charity Veterans in Action, running expeditions for veterans with PTSD. His first long-distance walking expedition was in 2010, from Scotland’s John O’Groats down to Cornwall’s Land’s End, and he has since taken hundreds of veterans on healing trips.

Because of his “amazing” work with veterans – and his public support for Israel on social media – MacLeod was invited last year to Israel by Daniel Berke, a friend and UK Lawyers for Israel volunteer who had helped set up a military expert panel. The trip was led by the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM). MacLeod jumped at the opportunity.

“I thought the world had to know a bit more – we hear so much negative stuff,” he says of his wanting to bear witness to the aftermath of the Hamas attacks. “There are two sides to every story, and we're only being told one. I wanted to hear it from the other side, and I think we got very honest opinions when we were over there – some good, some bad – and somewhere in between, I believe there was the truth. And I don't believe we've been told that truth anywhere in the Western media. I think there's an agenda against Israel, and that seems very political. I'm not that political, but I like to know the truth.”

There, on the “no holds barred” trip, MacLeod joined other ex-British servicemen in seeing the harrowing decimation of Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova festival site.

Billy MacLeod at the Nova festival site[Missing Credit]

“You can't see these things for it not to affect you,” says MacLeod, adding that he is “pretty resilient” given his daily work with those suffering with PTSD. “I hear and see a lot, and I try to disassociate myself from it, but it's quite hard to do that with the atrocities that were committed. At the Nova festival it was just young people trying to enjoy themselves, and that was the very people who probably wanted peace with Gaza anyway, and at the kibbutz in Be’eri, one of the people killed was a leading activist for peace. I believe she took children from Gaza to the hospitals in Israel, and they didn't care if they killed her. They only found her body through forensic evidence. I found all that shocking.”

Following his visit to Israel, MacLeod began planning the VE Day expedition in earnest, building on his years of experience leading veterans on therapeutic journeys. And now, two IDF veterans have joined British and American veterans on the expedition to mark VE Day.

“I’ve seen how the very act of being with other veterans, doing something that challenged you, and two people walking together, [encourages them to] start to share stories,” he says.

In 2017, MacLeod extended his programme for veterans to include taking Land Rovers apart and rebuilding them again, before using the cars to do over-land expeditions and to deliver aid, including taking medical aid to Ukraine when the war began.

“We were rebuilding people through the process of building Land Rovers,” he says. “With PTSD, people usually retreat home, then a room inside their house, then they retreat inside their own head.” Once that has happened, it is a long road back to recovery.

Shachar and Nitai with Chalky White, an SAS veteran who took part in the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege[Missing Credit]

Daniel Berke had known MacLeod since he was researching PTSD treatments for veterans for a book he was writing on his grandfather, who had suffered badly after serving in the Chindits Special Forces in the Burma campaign in the Second World War and being captured by the Japanese. Although he survived captivity, he never spoke about it, says Berke who later put the book’s proceeds towards Veterans in Action.

Organising mindful activities for two people, he says, is key to getting sufferers to talk.

“In the 21 years in which my grandfather was in my life, I never once saw him smile or heard him laugh. Any memories he had before the war were gone, and after that, he no longer knew how to be happy.” The Japanese had tortured his grandfather, and as a result, something as innocuous as a dripping tap would cause him to “break down in hysteria”.

“He slept with ghosts when he did sleep, and there were times that he would jump out of bed at a noise, ready to bow to a Japanese sentry, and my grandmother would have to get him back into bed. And what Billy has done is help people to have new happy memories and to smile again. What they do at Veterans in Action is they get people talking – not about what they've been through, but they just do things to get them happy again.”

MacLeod felt it was particularly important to commemorate the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe and the end of the war, so he set out to take a group of veterans to attempt to “cover every aspect of the war as much as we could here in the west”. The trip, sponsored by several Jewish companies, begins in Normandy. From there, the group travels to the site of the Malmedy massacre in Belgium, the Hürtgen Forest where 32,000 Americans died, and Arnhem, where Operation Market Garden took place. The journey continues across Germany to Mittelbau-Dora – a tunnel complex built underneath the Harts mountains by Jewish people imprisoned in concentration camps. From there, they head to Poland, to Upper and Lower Silesia. They will cover Ravensbrück, the women’s concentration camp in northern Germany, Gross-Rosen, and Auschwitz.

Their visit to the harrowing site where one million Jews were murdered is followed by what MacLeod calls the “healing part” of the journey, as they drive through Slovakia and Austria surrounded by peaceful mountains. Then they will visit landmarks including the Eagle's Nest over Berchtesgaden, and the haunting location of the Battle of Bastogne.

MacLeod says, “It's about honouring the past, healing the people who are here now, and maybe inspiring people for the future.”

MacLeod feels that PTSD treatment can be out of date, and that the use of marijuana medically, as part of the healing process, is not a long-term answer. He believes that bringing different groups of people together can help more.

“I think activity is the answer, and having a purpose,” he says. “You still need medication, but I don't know that marijuana is going to get you there. To have these three nationalities together, who should be allies, we can learn how each of us are dealing with PTSD.”

Berke agrees, pointing out that all the way along, the group will be doing good deeds, talking to and helping people. “It's amazing when you see how people start coming out of it. If you would have known Billy ten years ago, he was an angry Scottish guy trying to fight everyone. Medication is just a mask, and therapy only goes so far. It's about trying to rebalance people and teach them how to be happy again and give them new happy memories.”

He adds that putting two veterans in each Land Rover on the expedition will increase the opportunity for talking. And they will swap places all the way across Europe. “If you have three [in a car], it's too easy for someone to be quiet,” he says. “The idea is they're going to learn from each other.”

Shachar and Nitai[Missing Credit]

Nitai and Shachar are the two Israeli veterans on the trip. After losing his leg as a reserve in the IDF two-and-a-half years ago, he became an off-road instructor. He is now developing a new programme to help people with PTSD – veterans and anyone with disabilities – to overcome challenges through off-road driving. “The driving challenges will be like challenges in life – if you can overcome this, you can overcome that,” he explains.

Nitai has always been surrounded by cars and trucks, and off-roading, he says. “I've done it since I was ten years old.”

When he was injured, Restart Global – a non-profit organisation helping wounded IDF soldiers to overcome challenges and restart their life journey by creating innovative products to help them – contacted him to ask if he needed anything. An outdoors adventurer, he requested a device to help him to climb up to the rooftop tent on his car. For Nitai, it enabled him to overcome the barrier to living his life to the full.

“They are an amazing group of people who want to help veterans,” says Nitai. “It gave me hope, like someone is giving me a push to go for something bigger. This delegation with them is very big, because we have the honour to meet veterans from around the world, especially from the UK. Inviting us means the world.”

Restart Global’s devices have helped numerous veterans to overcome challenges caused by physical and mental disabilities. When last year a woman veteran wanted to dance at her wedding but could not find footwear that fit, the organisation made her a special shoe.

Berke met Restart Global’s vice president, Boaz Hochstein, at Tel Hashomer hospital which was caring for many wounded soldiers, and was astounded by the organisation’s smartwatch that uses AI technology to identify someone when they are having a PTSD episode. “It's just mind-blowing,” he says. “And they make remodelled controllers for PlayStations, for people who have had hand injuries, refashioned golf clubs. It's wonderful.”

MacLeod with wounded IDF soldiers and Military Expert Panel delegates in Tel Hashomer hospital[Missing Credit]

The veterans also take part in therapeutic Lego-building sessions, an activity that Veterans in Action also runs. One person reads the instructions, while the other one builds. “But it's not about building Lego. It's about building the people. It's about getting them to talk when they're sitting there with someone else.”

Above all, Nitai is looking forward to meeting the other veterans and to find out how off-roading, travelling and spending time talking with others helps them. “Because I know it helps me,” he says. “These are the things that help me with the condition I'm in.”

It will also enable them all to learn about, and commemorate, events close to their hearts. For Nitai, this means the visit to Auschwitz, where most of his grandfather's family were murdered. It is a time, too, to reflect on family contributions – he recounts how his great-grandfather fled to Russia to join the Red Army and fight the Nazis. “He stayed alive and he did it. He lived to 86 with a bullet in his leg,” he says, proudly.

Nitai is aware that on the journey, he could face challenging questions regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

“I do feel like an ambassador for Israel,” he says. “If people approach me, I will try to give them perspective and understanding on why we're doing what we're doing. We have been there forever, and no one can change that. I'm just giving them the facts and the history. At the end of the day, war is ugly, and we're commemorating 80 years for the worst war ever.

“I hope they will see us as real people. Because we are not looking to kill. If we could stop everything, we would. But we still have 59 people over there.”

As a “very positive” person, who has triumphed over his trauma, Nitai is ready to contribute his best to this journey. “Building those connections is going to affect us all in the best way possible.”