Today, 127 Irish soldiers are due to head for Lebanon. Will they face unnecessary risk, as one former corporal believes? Tom Clonan reports

The birth of his second son, Barry, prompted Martin Malone, then an Army corporal, to re-evaluate his reasons for serving overseas. "As a little boy, [ Barry] said, 'Daddy, promise me you won't go away any more,' so I promised and I didn't."

Malone (49) is conscious that 127 Irish soldiers and their families are preparing for a new deployment to Lebanon. He is very critical of the current mission.

According to Malone, "Unifil [the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] no longer has the confidence of the people of south Lebanon - or even of the Israelis for that matter. The UN has failed to protect the villagers of south Lebanon from Israeli attacks over and over again. The Lebanese barely tolerate the UN because of the humanitarian aid they provide. I would say that the UN has barely achieved its humanitarian objectives in Lebanon and has completely failed in its military objectives there."

Malone feels that under the current conditions - as peacekeepers - the Irish redeployment to Lebanon places Irish troops unnecessarily in harm's way.

"If the UN is just building roads and bridges and not enforcing the ceasefire, then why send them? Why not just send in the Red Cross or other NGOs?

"Al-Qaeda now have training camps in Lebanon, and along with Hizbullah, they barely tolerate the UN. They are hostile to the UN - including Irish troops."

Malone believes that the UN, in building bridges and roads, is indirectly contributing to Hizbullah's re-arming and re-equipment programme.

"The Finns and Irish will be building roads for Hizbullah and releasing Iranian funds for terrorism in south Lebanon and Israel. Both sides in this conflict are getting ready to start the war again, and the Irish will be caught in the middle. Hizbullah now own the hearts and minds of south Lebanon and despite our history in Lebanon, they are hostile to our young men and women. So, if the UN wants to wittingly or unwittingly provide infrastructure to help Hizbullah's latest build-up, why send in Irish troops to do it?"

When contacted by The Irish Times, a Defence Forces spokesman rejected the claim that Irish troops would be put unnecessarily at risk in the current deployment. He said Irish personnel will not be doing the work of NGOs but will be performing reconnaissance, security and protection duties as deemed essential by Unifil.

The spokesman added that a thorough risk assessment of these tasks had been carried out to further minimise the exposure to danger of Irish troops. He acknowledged that, like all military missions, there was a risk involved, but said this was an unavoidable component of all overseas service.

Then a corporal, Malone retired from the military police corps of the Irish Defence Forces in 2002 after 21 years' service. Born into a military family - both of his grandfathers were sergeants in the Irish Army - Malone displayed a creative urge from an early age. By the age of 12, he had begun to write detective stories in pencil into the pages of his school copybooks. According to Malone, "My parents used to read them all right. But the idea of having a writer in the family wouldn't have occurred to them. I suppose, in a way, I was a black sheep."

Malone joined the Army in 1982 as he puts it "out of economic necessity". "It was a toss of a coin, either go in the Army or emigrate. At the time, in Kildare, whole football teams of lads would emigrate over a weekend. I joined the Army and stayed."

In an army that was stagnating due to a recruitment and promotion embargo in the 1980s, Malone joined the military police in order to secure a more promising career path. "Being an MP [military policeman] guaranteed an escape from the antiquated drudgery of life in McDonagh Barracks in the Curragh. I remember being in crumbling guardrooms, with black water running down the internal walls and ceilings, dressed in spit-shined boots and a shirt and tie. We'd be on duty for up to 36 hours without a particular purpose and without sleep in these conditions. I used to wonder what kind of an organisation I had joined and how it valued its people."

Leaving the infantry unit in McDonagh Barracks for the Military Police Corps guaranteed Malone, then a Private, elevation to the rank of corporal and the relative freedom and comfort of mobile Military Police patrols. However, Malone found himself increasingly at odds with the Army, much of whose discipline seemed to operate along the lines of bullying, intimidation and an exaggerated class barrier between officers and other ranks.

"One striking memory I have is of a time I was responsible for the training of 'probationers' or trainee military policemen. I was looking out the window of the training depot at eight probationers lined up on the square. A senior officer joined me and picked out one of the guys. 'I want him screwed mercilessly,' he said. I refused to do it. Later I found out that he had been singled out for 'special treatment' as he had made a complaint against an officer for 'molestation' as we called it, or sexual harassment."

It was at this point in his career that Malone realised that "my face and my tongue in particular, didn't quite fit" within an army that according to him "operated on the basis of cronyism for promotion and overseas postings". "I realised that I had joined a dysfunctional family, namely the Irish Army."

Throughout this period of his service, from 1989 to 2002, Malone continued to write. "I had over 100 short stories published in everything from Woman's Way to the Catholic Reality magazine to Ireland's Own." He also had more than 20 short stories broadcast on BBC and RTÉ radio. Four of his short stories got to the finals of RTÉ's Francis MacManus Awards - an award he finally won in 2004 for Mango War.

Most of Malone's writing appears to have been as he puts it "below the radar" as far as the military authorities were concerned. He received no reaction to his writings until 1996, when he wrote a series of articles from Lebanon for the Kildare Nationalist. One article in particular, in which he criticised the proposed early release of Private Michael McAleavey - who shot dead three of his UN comrades in 1980 - drew criticism from the general staff.

The then Defence Forces press office demanded that Malone submit his writing to them for approval prior to publication. He refused to do so, and went on to have his first novel, Us - based on a dysfunctional family - published in 2000. In 2001, his second, After Kafra - dealing with an Irish soldier's experience of post-traumatic stress disorder - was published, followed by Broken Cedar in 2003.

By this time, Malone had retired from the Army during a period he describes as "the lowest point in my military service, when I realised that my career prospects were frozen out, because of my inability not to speak my mind, and of course, my writing".

A Defence Forces spokesman says that a transparent system of merit-based promotion has existed for many years. He points out that there are redress mechanisms should any serving soldier feel aggrieved by a decision of a promotion board.

But Malone feels strongly that the frank expression of views is not welcome in the Irish Army where "creativity is not appreciated or understood".

"The Irish Army, unlike other armies that have a tradition of writers and poets, is too rigid. You are expected to conform without question to an inequitable system, what I'd call an unspoken system of direct and indirect bullying. If you step outside the box, you do so at your peril - at risk to your rank and career."

According to the spokesman, the historical situation in relation to bullying was officially acknowledged by the military authorities in 2002 and examined in detail by Dr Eileen Doyle of DCU. She made a broad range of recommendations that were fully implemented by the military authorities in 2004, and the situation is being kept under constant review by both Doyle and the chief of staff, who has taken a personal interest in eradicating any bullying or perceptions about bullying within the Defence Forces.

For Malone, the highest points of his military career came with overseas service. He served overseas six times, five times in Lebanon and once in Iraq. "Overseas service left an indelible mark on me," he says, "especially in Lebanon. I got to know the country, the people. Every soldier who serves there leaves something of himself behind." It was for this reason, "to finally put the Leb behind me", that Malone wrote his latest book, The Lebanon Diaries.

He dismisses previous "approved" books about Lebanon.

"This book tells the story from the point of view of the soldier. It talks about the fear. It describes the suffering and casualties. But most of all it describes the sacrifice that families of soldiers make when their loved ones go away. It describes the long goodbye. And the fear of not coming home, of dying far from loved ones."

Martin Malone is conscious of his status as a black sheep of sorts within his own family and within the wider "dysfunctional" family he found in the Irish Army. "If I were in any other army, I think, based on my abilities and attitudes I'd have been promoted - or maybe executed."

The Lebanon Diaries is published by Maverick House, €13.99

Dr Tom Clonan is the Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the school of media, DIT. tclonan@irish-times.ie