London, March 12: Former British premier Margaret Thatcher today threw her weight behind a campaign to help ex-servicemen suffering from mental health problems.
The servicemen are the ones returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thatcher recalled that she had sent British troops into action – in the Falklands in 1982 and the first Gulf War – and knew about the mental scars they can suffer.
“Our duty is to match the skills shown on the battlefield with the quality of care we provide for the casualties of war once they return home,” the Conservative former prime minister wrote in The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Backing a Stg30 million ($A49.37 million) appeal by a charity called Combat Stress, she added, “Twice in my time as prime minister I had to take the decision to send our armed forces into action.
“Such decisions are taken with a heavy heart but also in the knowledge that our military personnel will face their task with supreme professionalism and unfailing courage.”
And she said, “It has long been part of our island story that when great principles have to be upheld or evil tyrants confronted, then Britain answers the call to take up arms.
“Yet while the causes for which we fight are noble we must never forget that the reality of war is brutal. The visible wounds of war may over time heal but the unseen scars to the human mind can afflict for many years after the guns have finally fallen silent.”
The comments were a rare public intervention by Thatcher, 84, who has largely withdrawn from public life after suffering a series of strokes.
She was Britain’s prime minister from 1979 until 1990.
Her remarks come weeks ahead of a general election expected on May 6 in which current Conservative leader David Cameron is battling to oust Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has closed the opinion poll gap in recent weeks after trailing the Tories by a long way for more than two years.
—Agencies