Panorama: Forgotten Heroes, BBC One

It was a particularly forceful 60 minutes because it was fronted by Colonel Tim Collins, the former Commanding Officer of the Royal Irish who made that celebrated eve-of-battle speech before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was also Collins who was infuriated by Jimmy McGovern's portrayal of army life in the Afghan war drama Accused: Frankie's Story, shown on BBC One last November. Here, he had a chance to redress the balance as he presented an assortment of grim case histories.

Private Steve Van Der Bank, having survived an onslaught of Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq, returned home to Mansfield to find himself plagued with anger, moodiness and nightmares. Heavy drinking made him violent, and he ended up homeless and suicidal.

Royal Marine Gary Beake had returned from seven months in Afghanistan, where he'd seen 19 of his comrades killed, and found himself without a job and sleeping on a mattress in the living room of his mother's cramped house in Newcastle. He was a low priority on the council's housing list, while his army training as a signaller proved mysteriously useless in the jobs market.

Steve Anquetil, after eight years in Iraq with the Royal Welsh, described how he'd landed at Brize Norton in the morning and been back home in Newport later the same day, without any kind of adjustment or decompression period. It wasn't until 18 months later that he was diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress. He looked like a haunted man walking on eggshells, but he eloquently made the point that while it takes six months to turn a man into a soldier, the MoD assumes it takes no time whatsoever to turn him back into a civilian (British troops in Afghanistan, pictured below).

Perhaps the most pitiful was Mark Morgan, a veteran of Northern Ireland who'd been on patrol in Omagh when the bomb went off in August 1998. Tormented by flashbacks, he'd descended into a spiral of heavy drinking, crime and prison, and ended up living rough in Brighton. Colonel Collins joined him for a night sleeping in a doorway, and didn't enjoy it. Morgan has now quit drinking and aims to go to university, but he seemed horribly fragile.

The public may not support our weird shadow-wars, which just seem to trundle along because nobody has the wit or the will to force them to a conclusion, but they do support the servicemen, and give generously to military charities. Politicians by and large only pay them lip service, when pressed. Collins's soldiers suffer from the extra disadvantage of being from the white working class, and are therefore not fashionable at Westminster.

• Watch Panorama: Forgotten Heroes on BBC iPlayer