Bex Preece recalls one lunch time during her A level studies: “I was sat in the careers library and saw nursing in the military and thought ‘that looks alright!’”
She applied, sailed through the interviews and selection for the RAF, and joined in July 2002. She trained simultaneously as a nurse (at Portsmouth Uni) and for a career in the RAF. “It was a culture shock! I spent 7 weeks at RAF Halton doing basic training where I learnt about the RAF and skills in weapon handling, drill, etc. My parents were really surprised but proud that I managed to complete basic training as they had been sceptical at first.”
When Bex qualified, her first posting was to Headley Court in Surrey in 2005. “It was the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, a specialist centre where serving personnel came for rehab following an accident, injury or physical health condition.
“When I first got there, the ward was really quiet. But things soon changed.”
Life at Headley Court
At Headley Court Bex came face to face with the raw reality of the conflict in Iraq. “I remember the first person I looked after was a young soldier who had lost his leg on his first ever deployment. I was only 21 at the time, so seeing someone so young without a limb was quite shocking; he also had lots of other wounds from shrapnel injuries… It was a lot for him to take in. It took him time to get used to being on the ward and leaving his bedspace.”
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Bex cared for service personnel with terrible burns, catastrophic head injuries, amputations and other life-changing conditions. Many of her patients could go home at weekends, but some lived too far away or their care needs were too complex: “so we would do activities at the weekend with them. We’d take them shopping in town or take them to the cinema; it was nice to do those kinds of things with them.”
“I spent so much time with them, as they’d often be with us for months, that it felt like they were family.”
“There is one thing I am very proud of.” A lasting memory for Bex is when she took a teenage veteran to collect his campaign medal at Clarence House from Prince Charles. “The guy I was with had suffered a very bad head injury: he couldn’t speak, he could only communicate through drawing pictures. We went into Clarence House and we were greeted and had a cup of tea whilst everything got sorted. We could see his Regiment get presented their medals outside, and then Prince Charles came in to where we were, and presented him with his medal and met us and his family. The guy I was with was drawing pictures to explain to the Prince. Things like that you will never forget.”
Posting to Kuwait
In 2008 Bex underwent training to be posted in support of the Operations in Iraq. She thought: “Oh my god, I’m going away and they are giving me weapons! What am I letting myself in for?”.
“I was an Aero-Med Liaison Officer based in Kuwait. Army units would come out to Kuwait before going into Iraq. I worked in the Med Centre with Army nurses, doctors and Combat Medical Technicians to look after people who needed to get flown back to the UK for treatment.”
She was assigned to a huge camp of multinational forces. “In the British bit we just had tents and a small NAAFI. You had to go outside across the desert to a trailer block to have a shower - and you were only allowed a one-minute shower because of the water supply issues.”
Later, she was assigned to an even bigger American base and it was there that Bex had her own brush with ill health. “I woke up one day feeling awful - really high temperature - and went to the Army doctor. I got flown in a Blackhawk with medics and drips, it was a really surreal experience. I was in hospital for about a week.”
She had a serious kidney infection and was about to be discharged when, fortunately, a doctor changed his mind and gave her the first dose of new antibiotics. “My lips started tingling; then I thought ‘I REALLY don’t feel right’. Suddenly I became the emergency because I had ballooned up: I was having an anaphylaxis… They gave me the first shot of adrenaline and that didn’t work; eventually they gave me the second and that worked. I think having medical knowledge made it worse as you understood how serious it was.”
Bex’s journey to Invictus
Bex returned to the UK in spring 2009 and was soon posted to an RAF base to work in primary care, including preparing troops for deployment to Iraq with vaccinations and health checks. She was promoted to Sergeant, and then to Flight Sergeant in 2016.
Unfortunately, Bex experienced health problems that ultimately led to her medical discharge in 2019. She remained in the health sector, but “I had seen a post on the Royal British Legion Facebook page about applying for the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, which was going to be the first winter Games.”
Selected to represent Team UK at the games in Whistler, Bex is proud to have achieved the bronze in the slalom. “It’s just amazing the support you get and having a purpose and getting the fire back in your belly... When you have been in the military, its different to being a civilian, you have that bond, that shared experience which sometimes people don’t understand. I really struggled with that when I left, I missed the banter of the military. So when you are back… with people still serving and veterans, it was really lovely being in that situation again.”
