Vaccines have been blamed for illness

Despite escaping without a scratch from the conflict of a decade ago, today he counts himself among its casualties.

He is one of hundreds of former soldiers coming to terms with the fact that they are suffering illness linked to their time in the Gulf.

Mr Rusling, 41, who was a sergeant in the elite Parachute Regiment and based just inside the Saudi border in 1991, said: "No matter how strong you are, in the Paras or the SAS, it can get you.

I lost my job, my wife, my home, my car. I cannot tell you how terrible it was. Shaun Rusling

"I was a very fit, very arrogant sergeant who thought it would never grip me. I was in denial but in the end I just spiralled into it."

The father-of-two said the first signs emerged after the war, back in England, when he became irritable and aggressive.

"I began to get severe sweats, nightmares and flashbacks. I was 'seeing' people with gunshot wounds to the head, people having limbs amputated, even a 13-year-old Iraqi girl injured in the fighting whom I had treated.

"I became non-functional, self-destroying and extremely violent to people around me.

"People tried to help but I was confused and angry, and I didn't know why. I just walked away. I shunned my family, my friends, I wouldn't listen to a soul."

Counselling

Shaun Rusling has won his fight

Mr Rusling said: "I was totally unreasonable. Everything I touched turned to lead. I lost my job, my wife, my home, my car. I cannot tell you how terrible it was."

He said the army's response was to brand him unfit for duty and discharge him into "civvy street".

It was an NHS doctor in his home town of Hull, East Yorkshire, who eventually diagnosed post traumatic stress disorder.

Mr Rusling now receives weekly counselling, has remarried and has a young daughter.

He is chairman of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, which helps others in the same position.

He said: "The MoD just send people into the community with their heads on fire. That's wrong."