Carl’s story
I can’t say much about what happened to me on my last tour of duty, except that I got into a bad situation where I was wounded. When I was in hospital I got an infection and became very ill. After a while, it dawned on me that I might die. I accepted it, but I did feel very upset that I might die a long way from home and not see my wife or my two sons again, or my mum or my aunt. Then one day I had a dream or a hallucination, that I was walking through the front door into my front room and hugging my wife and my children were running up to me. I was filled with joy and relief. When I woke up I was filled with the certainty that I would recover and see my family again and I said to the doctor ‘I am going home’ .Unfortunately he rather took that to mean that I was about to die! Although it took me some time to recover, I held on to that vision, or whatever it was, with all the determination I could manage. I was going to go home, whatever it took, whatever happened, and I did.