‘Our Glorious Dead”. Pass through any British village and you will see a war memorial bearing these words. We are fortunate that so many still remain willing to sacrifice their lives to defend us. Every man and woman who joins up knows that a violent end 3,000 miles from home, in the Afghan desert of death, is a chillingly real possibility.
Wootton Bassett has become an indispensable part of the homage we pay to them. The ceremony in that exemplary town is all the more poignant because it is neither media creation nor the result of official edict. It started simply as a spontaneous desire by townsfolk to pause and pay their respects as the funeral cortège passed through, echoing Wilfred Owen’s sentiment: “These men are worth your tears.”
People now come to Wootton Bassett from the length and breadth of the country on the days that soldiers’ bodies are repatriated, making it an event of military mourning second only to Remembrance Sunday. I have seen how great a source of comfort and strength it is for the families, friends and comrades in arms of the dead. But it seems all this is to end, and deliberately so. With the closure of RAF Lyneham, and repatriations redirected through RAF Brize Norton, the cortège will no longer pass through Wootton Bassett. Oxfordshire Council has carefully planned a new route to avoid rekindling the Wootton Bassett spirit in Carterton, next door to the Brize Norton base.
Shamefully, it claims that the cortège cannot travel through the town because it would disrupt the weekly market held on Thursdays, the day most repatriations occur. If this is too great a burden for the market traders to bear then the Ministry of Defence must change the “normal” repatriation day. But I do not doubt that the citizens of Carterton would be willing, like those of Wootton Bassett, to suffer the disruption a procession through their main street would cause. Adding insult to injury, the MoD intends that our war dead should return through RAF Brize Norton’s back gate, pleading that repatriation via the front would interfere with routine operations. I am told a minister has been down to see the new arrangements and is content. He shouldn’t be. This is not a matter of efficiency but of symbolism. With the ingenuity for which they are renowned, the RAF could certainly find a way to reorganise operations on repatriation days.
For our tomorrow, valiant men and women have given their today. Every one of us should be willing to give a little of our today to honour their sublime sacrifice.
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Col Richard Kemp is a former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan