'It wasn't worth it' say North East Afghanistan Veterans

Military veterans from the North East who served in Afghanistan for the British Forces have told ITV News Tyne Tees the conflict "wasn't worth it", following the fall of the country into Taliban control.

Corporal Kara Sennett, who served for the Royal Logistics Corps for 18 years and completed two tours of Afghanistan, said watching the current developments in the country is difficult to deal with.

She said: "to sit there over the past few days and see more and more newspaper articles or, you can’t avoid it on social media, so it’s a case of you have to be mindful and withdraw away from social media to not let it impact you as such, but I’m taking that break because it’s painful to see that I’ve been in those locations.

"Four hundred and fifty plus people that lost their lives, it’s not just about them now. It’s about the families. It’s about the people who are continuing to live with that pain everyday. I don’t think it was worth it."

James Rose lost both his legs when they were blown off by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province in 2009. The Teesside veteran told ITV News it is difficult not be upset and angry at events in Afghanistan.

He said: "I knew this would happen. I knew it would. When we were told we were going to pull out, I just knew that it would be taken back over again and it would only be a matter of months or a matter of years that it would be back in the Taliban’s hands, so yeh, I’m just a bit upset about it and angry if I’m being honest."

The charity, Help For Heroes, supports veterans of the Afghanistan conflict. Veteran, Phil Hall, from Darlington is the head of complex cases.

He said: "I watched areas where there’s a lot of dust, a lot of sand, the airfield, all the people around there, I can smell it. When I see shooting, I can smell it, I can taste and I can hear the change in air pressure, the change in sound when a gunshot is fired and it takes you back.

"It absolutely takes you back to maybe moments in your life that you haven’t forgotten about, but you maybe aren’t ready to witness again in your living room. And sometimes that’s the problem, because it’s where you are. When you’re out in conflict you expect to see that. When you’re sat in your front room and suddenly you’re taken back to where you were maybe five or ten years ago, it can have quite an impact on you."