https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160000095742698&id=818022697
Your man has posted a response on Facebook.
Ye lads are always talking about Yemen
Some lads go to Cheltenham to do battle other to the Ukraine, it’s a tough choice for some
He’s alive anyway, I can confirm that 
Any word how @Tank is getting on?
A poster is welcoming 4 (four) Ukrainians into his home tomorrow. I’ll ask if they came across a tank while they were fleeing the country.
Hopefully avoiding rubble too.
It’s hard to believe that I arrived in Poland less than six months ago. I was a different man back then. When you live a different life, that life shapes you. You change everything and you change yourself. Then eventually you move back to the same old mould and slowly you regain your old shape.
Anyhow, to cut to the chase, Ukraine was the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t have the words to describe how bad it was. The unrelenting terror, the overwhelming shame of not knowing what the fuck I was doing. Sitting on a bus or strolling down a quiet street or something, hundreds of miles from the front line, and struggling to hold my piss inside my bladder I felt that scared. In retrospect I was going through a complete mental breakdown and maybe that mental breakdown even started before I quit my job and left Ireland, I don’t know. There were at least 2 occasions in Ukraine when I felt the earth moving and lay down on the ground thinking I was about to be sick but it was all in my head.
Trouble started at training camp – I was nearly the only guy who didn’t know how to shoot a gun. The environment was not what I expected. I thought it would be all young Ernest Hemingway types but it was overwhelmingly complete cunts. A lot of American psychopaths doing all sorts of drugs in camp and then a few sound fellas. The cunts copped on pretty early that I was sticking out like a sore thumb and started giving me shit. Highly nihilistic people with warzone experience, used to people being killed in front of them, used to killing people, not just fake nihilists like I was used to in Ireland. That was a tough environment but I thought “Full Metal Jacket here, you’ve got to tough up. The front line will be worse.” So in retrospect I’m proud that I gritted down and at least I didn’t leave because of getting bullied like a little bitch by my own side. I actually ended up outlasting most of the cunts because the Ukrainian regulars came in and sorted out what they wanted and what they didn’t.
The Ukrainians also basically told me after about 2 weeks to just go home but I didn’t want to hear what they were telling me. While all this was going on, just basic stuff in retrospect, there had been a load of recruits killed at camp just before I arrived and again just after I left. You go to bed not knowing if you’ll wake up again. How can you live like that?
Should have left months before I did and probably didn’t do one useful thing for the war effort. I think The straw that broke the camel’s back was we were passing through a town called Kremenchuk going East one night, doing soldier things, and I met a girl called Galyna. We get talking, she’s a big Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fan, war sucks we both agree, philosophy this, fucking cool drugs that, she wants to be a photographer and then all I can say is boom, the curtains of life open for the first time and I’m standing in a different Kremenchuk outside a different pub by a different river and I’m in love with Galyna. Best looking girl you’ve ever seen, if she was in Ireland she’d be famous. She has no boyfriend she says and we’re texting away the whole time I’m in the East, something to look forward to. I’m nearly thinking about this more than the Russian army trying to kill me. I get my photo taken by the Russian border and then just when I’m heading back to Kremenchuk I see her in the insta for a friend of a friend Brit giving him a lovely big kiss and a cuddle. So basically she was riding the entire International Brigade. That was the perfect point to come home. Regiment were relieved to see the back of me.
I should have left as soon as I realised the Russians weren’t going to take Kyiv or even better just not gone.
I learned that I am a terrible soldier in every way. You keep hear people saying you get used to it but I never did and to be honest now I’m home I don’t want to.
Anyway, I’ve been lurking here for a good while now and I was even lurking a bit in Ukraine but I don’t want to restart my posting. TFK is better without me and maybe one day I’ll be better without it. If I came back all the other cunts would come back too.
One thing that I did miss over in Ukraine was sitting on the couch on a Sunday evening, with a cup of tea, watching RedZone and following the Fantasy NFL. I’ll indulge this fantasy. I’ll be doing all the TFK fantasy leagues again but that’s it. I don’t want to go back into the same shape I was previously because in retrospect that shape was broken and it went to Ukraine because I couldn’t continue.
Yes I saw loads of dead bodies, yes I saw people die, yes I got shot at and yes I fired back. I was extremely blessed to have some great soldiers in the regiment who I deeply respect and who I will hopefully never see again for as long as I live.
In the long run I might leave Ireland and go be with my kid in Brazil. Maybe that’s what this has all been about. I will never touch a gun again as long as I live. I have no Ukrainian friends or army friends and I learned no Ukrainian. I need therapy. In fact, if one good thing has come out of Ukraine, it’s that it made that clear.
I thank you all for your very kind messages above.
I hope you’re all well and that’s it.
tldr; I’m alive, I’m not coming back to TFK, fuck war
You’ve done d as one thing that very very few would even if the war was a lot closer, be proud of yourself for having the courage of your convictions
And mind yourself, especially your head
PS: TFK is definitely not better without you but do what makes you content
The place was poorer without you. Fair fucks to you. Fair fucks to your bravery/lunacy/honesty. Thats a mental 6 months.
TNH.
I wish you had contacted me before you went… Ive seen too many similar cases to your own when i was in the FCA. At least you recognise now that above all else you need therapy and that’s a good thing. Take care and I’ll see you on the Fantasy football field.