PhD

While the UK's combat mission in Afghanistan formally came to an end in October 2014, the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 came as a shock to many. Over the last twenty years 150,610 British service personnel served in Afghanistan with over 600 suffering life changing injuries and 457 personnel losing their lives.

This does not include the mental health casualties. Between 2010 and 2014, the War Story project at Imperial War Museums (IWM) worked with the UK Ministry of Defence and others to document the UK's involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan (Operation HERRICK). Forty-one oral history interviews were recorded with those who were deployed on Operation HERRICK within weeks of their return. In 2022, the IWM began reinterviewing the same participants about their deployments resulting in a second set of interviews. As such, there is a twelve- or thirteen-year gap between the two interviews which presents a unique and distinctive opportunity to address some major gaps in the existing literature. A matched sample is also being used to see if there are any differences between the repeat interviewees and the new sample.

How soldiers' narratives have changed over time, and the factors which influence them need exploration. The Operation in Afghanistan was a long conflict originating from 9/11 and ending in a 'defeat'. Research to date has not explored service personnel's' mental health experiences using oral history or examined how they narrate their experiences of Afghanistan given the 2021 withdrawal. As such, this project has two major research questions: 1) How have the narratives of those who served on Operation Herrick changed since 2010?

2) To what extent are changes in their narratives related to:

• The withdrawal from the conflict.

• Shifts in collective memories: within their unit or societal level about the conflict.

• Their narrated experience of mental health.