21/05/2026
Sirs/Gentlemen,
We have received a request for veterans to assist with a study by a French Student Louise Gerbier. Please get in touch if you would like to take part. I will let her explain.
My name is Louise Gerbier; I am a PhD student in France, working on the individual experiences of armed conflict. I am currently looking for Veterans who took part, in any capacity, in Operation Banner in Northern Ireland, as your voices are not often foregrounded in the research – especially in France. I am mainly interested in what combatants remember of their daily, lived experiences and what it means or meant for them to serve in these circumstances. To give you an idea of my overall theoretical interest, I try to articulate emotions and individual experiences with a more general historical context and sense of identity. In other words, I am not so much interested in “sensitive” information or military strategy as much as what your story is and what you would like to share – for instance: what are your first memories of Northern Ireland? What struck you while you served? How was the comradeship amongst your fellow soldiers? Did your loved ones understand what you were doing? etc.
I do understand the specific circumstances in which I am formulating my request, and I wish to assure you of my commitment to full anonymity, a right to retractation and my complete independence from any institution (my home university, Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, does not have access to my research).
Any excerpt from your testimony would be fully anonymous; it would be translated into French to be included in my PhD, and you would be free to indicate whether you consent to the excerpt(s) being published in academic research. The target audience for any publication of the kind would only be academics & researchers. All recordings, full transcripts, identifiable elements and personal data will be deleted immediately after the selection of relevant excerpts.
I understand that to you and your fellow ex service members, this question is not a mere research topic but has real, intimate implications. I would be honoured to have your perspective, or that of anyone you'd know who would be interested in sharing their story - I am humbly hoping to listen and to learn from individuals and try and understand more about the conflict and what it meant for people to go through it.
I am happy to provide details or credentials, and I thank you most sincerely for reading me.
Respectfully,
Louise Gerbier
Email: [email protected]
WhatsApp: +33 6 27 80 33 21
