Pink Camouflage by Gemma Morgan sampler
Her husband found her by the roadside, delirious and choking on her own vomit. Gemma Morgan was 33, happily married with two young children, an outstanding army service record and a first-class international sporting career. But underneath she was a wreck, surviving on a cocktail of vodka, Valium and sleeping pills. Misogyny, sexual abuse and toxic masculinity had been the daily realities of her Army career long before being deployed unarmed and unsupported to the blood and mayhem of a war zone. Motherhood left her lost and alienated, a soldier who had deliberately suppressed her femininity with no idea how to cope. Together, these experiences triggered a mental health crisis that left her suicidal, battling PTSD, betrayed and abandoned by the institution to which she had devoted seven years of her life. With the support of her family Gemma has since been on a long, hard and bumpy road to recovery. This is her story in her own words. She has told it to inspire others, especially those who have been affected by the toxic and coercive leadership culture that continues to pervade the British Army.
Her husband found her by the roadside, delirious and choking on her own vomit. Gemma Morgan was 33, happily married with two young children, an outstanding army service record and a first-class international sporting career. But underneath she was a wreck, surviving on a cocktail of vodka, Valium and sleeping pills.
Misogyny, sexual abuse and toxic masculinity had been the daily realities of her Army career long before being deployed unarmed and unsupported to the blood and mayhem of a war zone.
Motherhood left her lost and alienated, a soldier who had deliberately suppressed her femininity with no idea how to cope.
Together, these experiences triggered a mental health crisis that left her suicidal, battling PTSD, betrayed and abandoned by the institution to which she had devoted seven years of her life.
With the support of her family Gemma has since been on a long, hard and bumpy road to recovery. This is her story in her own words. She has told it to inspire others, especially those who have been affected by the toxic and coercive leadership culture that continues to pervade the British Army.
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Foreword<br />
Right from the start of this book there is a sense of<br />
disbelief and incredulity that this must be a work of<br />
fiction and that there has been a very liberal dose of<br />
journalistic licence. However, this story is searingly<br />
true and cuts right to the heart of life for a female<br />
soldier in today’s Army. It is a hard-hitting, graphic,<br />
honest and, at times, brutal recount of a promising<br />
career tainted with misogyny, trauma and, at the<br />
end, betrayal. <strong>Gemma</strong> <strong>Morgan</strong> is one of the lucky<br />
ones who has survived all kinds of hell to tell her<br />
story, in an effort to inspire the many others that are<br />
now battling to acclimatise to civilian life.<br />
My son, Christopher, died aged 35, as a result of<br />
PTSD from his army service. Like <strong>Gemma</strong>, Chris was<br />
also a Captain, trained at the revered Sandhurst Academy.<br />
Upon discharge he suffered similar mental health<br />
challenges and expressed so many of the same feelings.<br />
It makes you think – does the Army really take care<br />
of its own? <strong>Pink</strong> <strong>Camouflage</strong> is a fascinating insight<br />
into a macho, male-dominated world where reality is<br />
so grotesquely distorted from the public perception.<br />
Read it, believe it, because sometimes the truth is far<br />
more incredible than fiction.<br />
Terry Butcher<br />
former captain of the England football<br />
team, author of Bloodied But Unbowed<br />
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