Back to this:

: I remember treating a guy in a psychiatric unit who had been a serving soldier in the North
: of Ireland. He came over to spread the word of God. Very nice guy, clearly unwell,very psychotic.
: [...] Remember these two guys who used to visit him a lot asked to see me. They asked had he
: gone into his service over here much ? I said just a few times, nothing detailed. One replied
: that we would prefer if you tried to discourage any conversation. Best no one knows his
: background or what he belonged to in the interest of personal security.

What that reminds me of is the conscripted soldiers who were used as guinea pigs for nuclear
or chemical warfare experiments and then silenced by the Official Secrets Act, preventing
them getting appropriate treatment because they couldn't tell their doctors what had
happened to them. In the case of the nerve gas experiments, there is a treatment window of
a few weeks after which the damage becomes irreversible; the Army's policy of secrecy
had the effect of turning a serious but treatable injury into a lifelong crippling disability.

It would have been in that man's interest for you to get those "two guys" photographed,
frogmarched to the door by some large strong nurses and told never to come back. His
problem at that point wasn't with the IRA any more (if it ever had been), it was with the
Army.