Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

Product Information

Anyone who’s lost someone to suicide can kind of hear my story and realise they couldn’t have done anything to help. I [was] so far down the PTSD route that nobody could stop me. I think it’s an important message for people who have been affected by suicide to know that. That’s the questions [that] are always left after suicide, isn’t it? What could I have done to help them? How could I have stopped them doing that?

I knew we were about to crash so I braced myself hard against the door frame and placed my hand on the release straps of my harness,” she said. So, how did McConaghy end up in such desperate circumstances? She had seen some terrible things on deployment during her service, not least flying on the medical flights recovering badly injured and dead soldiers from the battlefield. Then a close friend succumbed to terminal cancer and her own marriage to a soldier ended. And she tried to deal with it all on her own. The truth [is] none. The crewmen never once made me feel as though I was an outsider or special for being female. But I wasn’t a trailblazer either, there were crew gals before me, and plenty came after me and will continue to do so.” Liz summarised her experiences with mental health and shared her tips for those who are suffering, and those who know someone else who is suffering. From dodging bullets to saving soldiers and witnessing the brutality and loss of war, Liz discusses how she found herself bringing the battlefield home, despite her fighting days being over.

Liz McConaghy

Liz turned to writing both poetry and her autobiography following a tough battle with PTSD years after leaving the service, in the hope it may help others with their mental health. The book is an honest and humorous account of Liz’s ‘ best of times and worst of times’ and how her experiences flying on the Chinook have changed and moulded her into the woman she has become. When asked what she missed most about the military, McConaghy placed an emphasis on “the people, the banter, the chats” but also said she misses “the smell of the aircraft”.

Originally from a small town in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, she attended RAF Cranwell on her 19th birthday to begin her exciting career.

You do a six-month school called the UCF, which is where you work up to learn how to operate and then you get sent to your first squad, which for me was 27 and then you have to do what’s called a combat ready work up. So that is essentially learning how to operate the Chinook when you’re getting combat ready. You learn what rules you can bend when you’re at war; if you’re getting shot at, what you can and can’t get away with. PTSD doesn’t have to stay with you forever. It’s a chapter in my book, it’s not an anchor that I wear around my legs forever or a new label that I have to have forever,” she said. “I’ve met so many people via social media who tag themselves as the broken soldier or the forgotten veteran. But just like anything in your body, the bone you break or whatever, with the right time and methods you can heal, and you can move on and recover. I really want to get the message out – just because I had PTSD does not mean I have to have it forever.”