Every act of remembrance is different. For service personnel and veterans remembrance is not so much an event as a way of life. Memories of friends lost in the service of their country are not dusted off annually, to be boxed up again afterwards. They are constant. Parallels are everywhere. The story of the Unknown…
Category: Published in the Telegraph
Ten years after Afghanistan: do soldiers struggle with what they leave behind or what they come back to?
Ten years ago this month I deployed to Afghanistan on my last operational tour as a British army officer. Nothing on that tour was any more dangerous or troubling than anything else I experienced in my career, but even after a decade it still sticks out as one of the most intense periods of my…
Battle of Britain 80th commemoration: Flying among clouds with the ghosts of The Few
I dip the wing tip into a cloud and gently ease back the control column. The Spitfire pirouettes through the sky in a balletic arc. The weather outside my snug canopy is as glorious as it was for much of that summer in 1940 when earlier versions of this aircraft, accompanied by the growling Hurricanes,…
Hard Brexit, hard border, hard men
Overlooking the Lunch Lounge cafe on Castlereagh Road in Loyalist East Belfast, three gunmen pose with automatic weapons and offer their unwavering support ‘For God and Ulster’. The mural is a reminder of darker days; the Troubles, when Northern Ireland was riven with sectarian hatred. Amid the talk of no deal and hard borders, does…
Oil on troubled waters: the Royal Navy in the Gulf
The three Iranian Fast Attack Craft sped towards HMS Dragon from the port side. Nimble, quick and armed with machine guns, the small vessels darted towards the Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyer, threatening to weave between her and the three other British vessels she was escorting through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Although…
Shock and awe: we’ve been on front line for years, say women, as Royal Marines open up commando course to all
Women have been allowed to apply for close combat roles in the Royal Marines for the first time, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced, as veterans say the idea of a ‘front line’ in modern combat is outdated. After preliminary fitness tests and interviews, up to 20 women are expected to undertake the gruelling 32-week training…
