“I was absolutely dumbfounded": Soldier sacked 72 HOURS before he gets his full pension

Sergeant Lee Nolan was so furious about losing out on at least £100,000 that he sent his six military medals to David Cameron

AN Iraq war veteran was made redundant just 72 HOURS before ­qualifying for a full Army ­pension.
Sergeant Lee Nolan will lose out on at least £100,000 after he became one of 20,000 soldiers who are being axed in savage military cuts.

He was so furious at losing his job, his Army home and financial ­security after risking his life for his country that he sent his six military medals to David Cameron.

And in a moving letter to the PM he wrote: “The events of the past 12 months have turned my life on its head and sullied my near-18 years of loyal and exemplary service to my ­country.

“The medals I have enclosed would only serve to ­remind me of the shocking way I have been treated.”
Sgt Nolan is one of at least 80 soldiers, sailors and aircrew made redundant when they are less than a year away from qualifying.


There have been claims that they are being intentionally ­selected to save the MoD millions of pounds.
And the axed troops’ plight has sparked calls for a review, with an online petition demanding that the issue is debated in Parliament.

Sgt Nolan, 43 – who did tours of duty in Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo – joined the Army when he was 24.
He was made compulsorily ­redundant from his job as a medical technician in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers last September, leaving on August 31 after a 12-month notice period.

Depending on their rank, forces personnel aged over 40 need 16 or 18 years’ service to earn a pension and lump sum when they leave.

When Sgt Nolan’s redundancy was worked out he was stunned to find his service was 17 years and 362 days... just three days short.

He said: “I was absolutely dumbfounded. In one moment I lost my ­livelihood, my way of life and the pension I’d relied on to start again.”

He was given a redundancy payout of £93,000 and when he reaches 60 he will get a £5,000-a-year pension. If he had been made redundant three days later he would have received £188,500, made up of a £76,000 lump sum plus £6,250 a year until he was 60. After he complained, he made a heartbreaking discovery.

He said: “They discovered there had been an administrative error. They had only wanted 20 redundancies. I was the 21st.”

Appalled, Sgt Nolan, who has been forced to move in with ­relatives in Manchester, sent his ­letter and medals to Mr Cameron.

He received a letter dated a month ago thanking him and promising a reply but has not heard any more. He has now joined the campaign group Pensions Justice for Troops, which says ­redundant personnel will miss out on at least £40million between them.

Spokeswoman Jayne Bullock said: “People who leave the Armed Forces lose a whole way of life and need financial security as they adapt, retrain and start over again.”

A Number 10 spokesman ­declined to comment on the letter. The MoD said nearness to qualifying for a pension was not a factor in being selected for redundancy.

Read about another sad exit from the Army: "All I ever wanted to be was a soldier so it is heartbreaking to be leaving": Coldstream Guard who lost leg in Afghanistan faces discharge

Ex-Servicemen homeless because of immigrants?

Is it true that homeless ex-Servicemen cannot get into shelters because these are full of homeless immigrants?

A friend rang me the other day and followed up with an email about care of (or rather, lack of care of) homeless ex-servicemen

This is not a new story, regrettably. I had known that perhaps up to 25% of the homeless were veterans, a disturbing enough statistic. But I had not heard what what my friend went on to tell me.

And I should say that she is a former senior diplomat, who has since worked unpaid for a charity, and no ‘pushover’ when it comes to hard-luck stories or urban myths.



Disgraceful: It is estimated that around a quarter of those currently homeless are ex- servicemen

She had come out of Sloane Square tube station to find a man with a placard declaring he was ex-services and homeless. She interrogated him. He had been with the Royal Artillery for seventeen years, serving with 29 Commando Regiment, he said. His name was Stephen.

He gave her his army number, which she subsequently checked with contacts, and the facts tallied.

He was now homeless and had no source of income, he said: the splendid charity ‘Veterans Aid’, which for years has been struggling to cope as a primary point of help to men like Stephen, could only offer him a bed in ten days’ time, he told her.

He had been to SSAFA, to Citizens Advice etc, who signposted him on, and then to ‘Shelter’. And here’s where the story really begins to disgust – to say the least.

He said that all the civilian shelters were full of Somalis and Poles – which my friend tells me, according to her colleagues in the charity sector, is true, except that in rural areas it is more Somalis than Poles.

And it is, of course, true that until you have an address you cannot receive benefits.

Now, I cannot begin to think how a former soldier who was good enough to serve in the Commando Gunners for seventeen years ends up on the streets, but that’s another issue.

I can understand how the purblind immigration and profligate welfare policies of successive governments have made jobs and housing harder to get for British people (and abhor those policies).

What I simply cannot understand – if it is true – is how we have arrived at a situation where our charities are being overwhelmed by immigrant need to the exclusion of our own, as in the case of Stephen.

Is there really an absolute legal right to come to this country to beg? If there is, has anyone calculated the potential cost? If there isn’t, why are our charities having to work in this way?

The old saying that ‘Charity begins at home’ cannot be used to deny charity to those outside the home; – a destitute Pole or Somali deserves the Samaritan’s charity.

What the saying means, however, is that unless there is true charity within the family there can be none worthwhile beyond it.



A vicious circle: Without an address you can not apply for benefits, or in most cases, get a job

And there is such a thing as a national family – of which ex-servicemen are particularly honoured members.

My friend got in touch with me because of my RightMinds blog, adding, however, that there might not be enough to write about without a lot of research; – ‘But I fear there will be many more such cases.’

Of course there will be many more such cases after the last decade of what servicemen have been through. And - exacerbating the consequences of combat stress - we are about to throw out a lot of soldiers under the recently announced redundancy schemes.

I say "redundancy schemes", but many soldiers will be leaving without a compensatory penny - and for the first time will be made to find somewhere for themselves to live.

Now, you may say that "so does everyone coming of age"; but in many cases we have "institutionalized" our servicemen to a great deal in order to get them to do what they do. In other words, we've made them stop thinking of themselves so that they'll keep going back and doing their duty on operations.

We should not underestimate this factor in the lives of men who have served, say, a dozen years or so.

Which is why it’s worth raising the issue here now – at least to see what sort of perception of a problem there is.

As for the research, I suspect that Mail Online readers may have some facts and figures...

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