Honouring our Armed Forces Community this Remembrance Day: Charlie and Stanley’s reflections
Stanley during his time in the Navy
Today is Remembrance Day, a time to honour the courage and sacrifice of those who served and died in wars and conflicts. It is a time to reflect on the cost of peace and freedom to ensure that the legacy of those who gave their lives is never forgotten.
We have been sharing our staff’s reflections on what remembrance means to the members of the Armed Forces Community. Today, we hear from Charlie Tweed, Speciality Psychiatrist and veteran who bravely served for over two decades and Stanley, Clinical Charge Nurse at Centralised Place of Safety and a veteran of the Royal Navy.
Charlie said: “Remembrance, for many of us, is not straightforward. It isn’t something that can be neatly contained in ceremony or silence. Grief moves through us in strange ways; it surfaces years later in the middle of an ordinary day- a sound, a smell, a name you haven’t said for a while.
I served for 21 years in the military, regular and reserve, as a soldier and a Medical Officer. Over those years I lost several friends and colleagues in conflicts and crises across the world- some who didn’t return, and others who came home changed in ways they couldn’t explain. Some wounds are known quickly; others take their time to surface. I’ve come to see that trauma is the mind’s way of remembering what it can’t easily face. Remembrance is not just about loss, but about what endures- the fragments of human connection, love, and meaning that stay behind, beyond breath.
The NHS, at its best, runs on the same thing that kept many of us going in uniform: small acts of service, done quietly, often unseen. That’s what connects these two worlds for me- the sense of looking outwards, of trying to hold others up even when we may not always feel completely steady ourselves. Remembrance is a space to let our shared memory breathe, to acknowledge that the past doesn’t sit neatly behind us. It lives alongside us and shapes how we see, how we care, how we cope. It’s not about pride or politics. It’s about honesty.
That’s why remembrance feels at home in a place like SLAM. We see life in all its forms every day. People arrive to us carrying their own versions of loss- not usually from war, but from the day-to-day conflicts of life. Details and backgrounds differ, but it’s the same ache. Service in mental healthcare is often about holding the unconscious fragments of life together, however that may look.
This November, I remember my friends. I remember those I’ve seen affected by war and disease. I remember patients who remind me what survival looks like, and colleagues who quietly hold others up even when they’re not feeling like standing. And I invite you to remember, in your own way, the people and moments that have shaped you.
Remembrance isn’t all about the past. It’s about refusing to forget the life that we have- what we do with it, who we share it with, and how we keep ourselves connected in the face of everything that comes with it.”
Stanley said: “Remembrance Day holds a special place for me, as someone who has served in the Royal Navy, it is a time to pause and reflect on those who came before and after me. It is also It is an also a time honour those who gave their lives in service by keeping their memory alive and ensuring their sacrifices are never forgotten. Remembrance Day can also be a day to reflect on the values we shared across the armed forces: courage, commitment, and looking after on another, the same values are alive here within our Trust displayed in the care we give, the teamwork we show, and the empathy we extend to our patients every day.”
Find out more about our Armed Forces Community: Armed Forces Community - South London and Maudsley
