Five members of HM Forces were killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Saturday when the Lynx helicopter, in which they were travelling, crashed.
They have been named as Captain Thomas Clarke, Army Air Corps; Flight Lieutenant Rakesh Chauhan, Royal Air Force; Warrant Officer Class 2 Spencer Faulkner, Army Air Corps; Corporal James Walters, Army Air Corps and Lance Corporal Oliver Thomas, Intelligence Corps.
Five more families and friends will suffer the unbearable loss of a loved one. Was it worth it? Of course not.
These deaths come at a particularly poignant time for me - one in which I can truly say ‘There but for the grace of God go i’. A member of my own family returned safely from their last six month tour of Afghanistan in February. Thankfully there will be no more tours as civilian life now awaits. The old adage “if I knew then what I know now” is very suited to my feelings of military life today and if I’d known nearly 20 years ago how a career in the military would develop into endless tours of war zones, then I would not have offered the encouragement I did.
My own experience of military life was positive and something I recall with fond memories, but these were formed before warmongering politicians became leaders of the western world and in the days when nobody would dream of saying to a soldier’s mother that their child was a hired killer.
All I can do is offer my condolences to those suffering intense grief and count my blessings, as I’ve done every day for many years.
R.I.P. you five professionals. You will be remembered.
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4 comments:
I hope and pray that this is the last in memoriam post you ever have to make.
Beautifully expressed, Rosie.
Such a waste of our citizens lives, because through no fault of their own, their achievements are zilch.
I sincerely hope so too JRB but I believe we are going to have a presence there for many years to come and that concerns me.
Thanks Joe. Somehow I think it will become more of a strictly Moslem country once the majority pull out.
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