Letter from Afghanistan 2009

(I wrote this letter ten years ago from Afghanistan; I think the message is just as relevant today as it was then and I rededicate it for this year and the years to come.)

Tonight we hold a memorial service for five comrades who have recently paid the ultimate price. In a corner of our Forward Operating Base in Helmand is a concrete plinth on which the Sappers have built a small cairn, surmounted by a simple wooden cross. All those who can be spared from duties form up in front of the memorial. The air cools a little as the sun slips towards the hard brown horizon and the numerous swifts that nest in the buildings come out as usual to catch insects, wheeling and diving over our heads. In the distance, the sound of the muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer carries over the still evening sky. He competes with the sound of a rock crushing machine by the banks of the river, busily making aggregate. The parade is called to attention and we listen to the eulogies of those who have died; some from our Battle Group, others from elsewhere, but all of them brothers in arms, nonetheless. The eulogies, written by commanders and friends, recall the character of the people; telling us something of what they were like, their nicknames, hobbies, sports, quirks and poignantly, their families. The last name is an Afghan interpreter, for he is just as much our brother as any of the fallen.     

The Regimental Sergeant Major recites the words of the forth stanza of the poem, For The Fallen, written by Lawrence Binyon in 1914 for another conflict in another time and place but eternally pertinent. 

"They shall not grow old as we grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."   

The notes of the Last Post ring out and are followed by a minute's silence. The mullah is quiet, the rock crushing machine ceases its pounding and peace descends. Even the swifts cease their flight as we stand, each with his or her own thoughts.  The silence ends with the trumpet call Reveille, the dancing notes designed to rouse sleepy headed soldiers from their beds in days gone by. The call acts as a simple reminder that after night there is day, after death there is life; above all, there is hope. The Collects of the different regiments are read out and together we say the Lord's Prayer, turn to the right, salute, fall out and walk past the memorial as we return to our duties. 

You will probably have seen how the people of Wootton Bassett honour our fallen as the cortege passes by the war memorial in the centre of the town.  We cannot be there nor can we lay our fallen to rest; we trust in other comrades to perform that task for us as we continue to soldier on out here.  So, our simple service is important both as a way for people to remember and to say goodbye.  Our memorial may be rough but it is a physical mark of that remembrance.

There is another memorial, also far from England, in Kohima, marking the place where the Allies stopped the Japanese invasion of India in 1944. It also features a cross below which is inscribed on a bronze plaque: 

"When you go home tell them of us and say for their tomorrow we gave our today"

I have yet to go home, but when I do I shall honour that inscription, those whom we have commemorated tonight, the ones that will inevitably follow, their families and those who live to bear the scars.  It is the greatest respect I can show.