Why we exist
Beyond the Wire provides support to armed forces families, friends and comrades navigating the profound impact of military bereavement. The loss of a loved one in service can bring significant challenges, including feelings of isolation, loss of identity, financial uncertainty, and difficulties accessing essential services.
We are here to listen, advocate for, and connect spouses, partners, grandparents, and carers, siblings, friends and comrades with the resources they need to find stability and healing. As a trauma-informed organisation, we work to ensure that the military bereaved community is treated with dignity and respect. Through our commitment to cultural and policy change, we strive to create a future where no member of the Armed Forces bereaved community feels forgotten or alone.
Why supporting Armed Forces Communities matters
Behind every service member is a family who serves. Military families provide unwavering support, resilience, and stability in an environment of constant change. Yet, the sacrifices they make often go unnoticed, and when a loved one is lost in service, the impact can be profound and far-reaching.
The hidden challenges of military life
Military families navigate constant change, moving every 2 to 3 years, rebuilding lives, careers, and support networks with each relocation. Children attend multiple schools during their education, and spouses face significant career challenges due to the demands of service life.
Why this matters for society
Supporting military families is not just about compassion; it is about recognition of their role in the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. Research shows that families who feel supported are more likely to remain engaged with military life, reducing the strain of recruitment and retention on the armed forces.
The lasting impact of bereavement
The loss of a loved one in service is a profound shift that affects every aspect of family life. Beyond the emotional impact, bereavement can lead to housing insecurity, financial hardship, and the sudden loss of identity and community, and for children, the loss of school and peer support.
Standing with Military Families
At Beyond the Wire, we believe that no bereaved military community should navigate loss alone. There is support available through many brilliant charities and associations but it is fragmented and hard to navigate. We are working to bridge the gaps in support, ensuring that families have access to the resources they need to rebuild their lives.
Real lives
The devastation of Armed Forces bereavement
One member’s story.
After 18 years of ‘following the flag,’ I thought I knew everything there was to know about being an army wife – and it’s not like the films, all mess parties and choirs of earnest love.
I’d met my husband just before 9:11 and then we all lived in the world of Before and After. We had met in Edinburgh, joyful and hopeful and we had so many plans for our life as a military couple. It seemed straightforward, an honourable choice; the sacrifices we would have to make – moving house and home and adopting a portfolio career seemed small in the context of Service to our country.
But then came Iraq, and the dawning realisation that the commitment we had thought we were making was going to take a different shape, a shape we hadn’t, as a country seen before, and certainly one, as a young family we hadn’t anticipated. We had no idea what was to come – and that Afghanistan was to be the backdrop to our family life for the next 15 years.
So then came the repeat deployments (five of them to Helmand Province, Afghanistan) and the endless separation – 7 or 8 months at a stretch – oceans of time with the weeks and weeks of pre-deployment training and the ‘decompressions’ afterwards, where we all learned to tip-toe around each other after the initial homecoming explosion of war-torn service person reintegrates into insular family life. I had so many weeks and months, and then years of lone terrifying parenting, four rounds of solo IVF, and the loss of two pregnancies – but then two beautiful daughters, born 18 months apart whilst my husband fought alongside the Americans, the Danes, the Australians, the Afghans and so many others, but especially his friends.
He missed birthdays, anniversaries, first steps, small teeth, scraped knees, nativity plays, reading books, labradors and kittens.
He missed the children and sometimes he even missed me, I think. Although they trained it out of him, the longing and the fear. I just had to learn to bury it the harder way…
After 18 years of ‘following the flag,’ I thought I knew everything there was to know about being an army wife – and it’s not like the films, all mess parties and choirs of earnest love.
I’d met my husband just before 9:11 and then we all lived in the world of Before and After. We had met in Edinburgh, joyful and hopeful and we had so many plans for our life as a military couple. It seemed straightforward, an honourable choice; the sacrifices we would have to make – moving house and home and adopting a portfolio career seemed small in the context of Service to our country.
But then came Iraq, and the dawning realisation that the commitment we had thought we were making was going to take a different shape, a shape we hadn’t, as a country seen before, and certainly one, as a young family we hadn’t anticipated. We had no idea what was to come – and that Afghanistan was to be the backdrop to our family life for the next 15 years.
So then came the repeat deployments (five of them to Helmand Province, Afghanistan) and the endless separation – 7 or 8 months at a stretch – oceans of time with the weeks and weeks of pre-deployment training and the ‘decompressions’ afterwards, where we all learned to tip-toe around each other after the initial homecoming explosion of war-torn service person reintegrates into insular family life. I had so many weeks and months, and then years of lone terrifying parenting, four rounds of solo IVF, and the loss of two pregnancies – but then two beautiful daughters, born 18 months apart whilst my husband fought alongside the Americans, the Danes, the Australians, the Afghans and so many others, but especially his friends.
He missed birthdays, anniversaries, first steps, small teeth, scraped knees, nativity plays, reading books, labradors and kittens.
He missed the children and sometimes he even missed me, I think. Although they trained it out of him, the longing and the fear. I just had to learn to bury it the harder way…
