1918-2008...Ninety Years of Remembrance, but We Must Remember Them All!

I must have asked a dozen people at random the same question yesterday...."Does the name Warrenpoint mean anything to you?"....and all but one person said "No mate, never 'eard of it" or "No, sorry, what's that then?". The one person who had heard the name before, asked me "Is that where all those soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland?". She was possibly in her late fifties or early sixties and probably the oldest person who I'd attempted to approach.

This all came about because I bumped into an old acquaintance/friend at the weekend (I'll call him Alan for the sake of having to call him something). He's usually homeless and I spotted him sitting on a bench in a big local shopping arcade simply because he was cold and hungry and quite damp and more than a little smelly ...He was also about to be moved on by a couple of typically heavy-handed security guys.

I walked over just as they began to lift Alan to his feet by his arms ready to march him back out into the rain.

Mmm....I have what the psychs call a "character reversion" when I see things like that. It's not a bad thing necessarily because for a little while, I'm a bit like my old self....I "revert" back to when I was much stronger mentally. Sadly, my old self would barely recognise what my new shadow-self has gradually become.

I approached them from behind and told them to let go of him, that he was with me and that I was taking him for a meal and a hot drink....I also said it in my old voice and was fully dressed in ranger uniform (not much I know, but almost any uniform can carry a resonance if you don't give people chance to think). They let Alan go and turned to face me, but it was my turn to take Alan by the arm and I led him away from security, up an escalator and into a small cafe where I bought him the meal and a brew.

I never give him money because he'll only spend it on booze....Alan is a chronic, long-term alcoholic, but I do always buy him something to eat and/or drink and I do always spend a little bit of time with him to talk about the old days.

I would have to check my diary to find out exactly what I was doing the day the IRA killed sixteen Paratroopers and two Highlanders at Warrenpoint in Late August 1979 in a well planned and cleverly executed two-tier attack, but Alan was in a truck just a few yards behind the one that was blown to smitherines by a half-ton bomb concealed under a pile of hay on the back of a flat-bed lorry parked at the side of the road close to the border. The bomb was detonated as the first truck drove by and six Paras died instantly, several were horrifically injured!

Alan and his oppos from the two remaining trucks raced to secure a perimeter while coming under heavy small-arms fire. A helicopter was immediately deployed carrying Highlander reinforcements and, as it took off from the scene carrying several wounded soldiers barely twenty minutes after the first explosion, a second device was detonated that killed ten more Paras and two Highlanders who had been taking cover in a nearby gatehouse!

Eventually the situation was brought under control only for the true cost to became horribly apparent. Alan was one of those who remained behind to help identify the remains of his former friends, oppos and colleagues, to gather the bits together and to shovel the mush into plastic bags!

Within hours his unit was back on patrol because the Government and the MoD were desperate not to show any kind of weakness in the face of what to all intents and purposes, had been a para-military triumph....and also because just a short while before and on the very same day, Lord Louis Mountbatten had been assassinated in London, also by the IRA!

Alan probably lost his way mentally that day and it's been a slippery slope for him ever since. He eventually left the Forces a few months later and returned to his family a changed man. He drank heavily, couldn't hold down any kind of a job, his wife divorced him and he ultimately found himself on the street. He hasn't actually seen his kids for more than twenty years!

These days Alan sleeps rough most nights and begs from shop doorways for loose change. Yet once he was a Para....one of the Military's very best....because that's what Paras are (even though obviously, it pains me to say it). He wore the Maroon with pride and honour back then, but now Alan gets moved on because he's an embarrassment to so-called "decent" people who work for a living and don't have time for wasters....and who have never heard of Warrenpoint!

In a two police officer "sting" operation conducted on a weekday at 0830hrs less than a month ago, Alan was targeted as a vagrant and arrested for begging on the street right here in the tranquil Cotswolds. He was gaoled and later had to appear in court where he was fined and bound over to "keep the peace". I had a word and my Boss paid his fine!

The cost of the two-man sting operation and the subsequent court appearance by the way, was estimated at around £1200. Alan had 26p on him when he was arrested, which, of course, was confiscated!

There was a brief and very negative write-up about it in the local rag as well (talk about criminalising someone)....The same local rag that did a big article in the same edition about the importance of remembering all our troops currently serving abroad....especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Well, I'm certainly not going to argue with the importance of that (quite the contrary in fact), but I will say this....

There are hundreds of Alans out there on our streets....surviving somehow....as best they can. Former soldiers (young and old alike) who did their bit as readily and as bravely as any other for Queen and Country, but who are not remembered in real terms, even in November....The Alans of this world are the truly forgotten soldiers....forced to move on simply because they smell and look untidy or are arrested for being some kind of social embarrassment. Unfortunately for them, you can't see their wounds. There's nothing amiss with them physically to give at least some indication of what they've been through and so, more often than not, they simply fade away....much to the relief I'm sure, of decent folk everywhere!

I also believe that it's only fitting and proper to remember the families of people like Alan who were equally forced to suffer in their own particular way after their loved ones were finally returned to them. Loved ones who had suddenly become pale, unfathomable reflections of their former selves. Loved ones who, through no fault of their own, had been returned, but as completely changed individuals. It's no surprise therefore, that such men quickly became strangers in their own land so to speak. That they couldn't help but create an especially relentless kind of misery for those closest to them while inadvertently opening a yawning chasm of despair for their families to be pushed into by particularly spiteful, sharp-clawed demons infesting the nightmares constantly laying siege to their sanity!

So yes, it's vitally important that you remember all those who are currently serving and all those who served in the past....but spare a thought as well for those former soldiers who, like Alan, were changed irrevocably by their military experiences and who can't quite manage their lives as well as they used to any more....and spare a thought too, for their families who have suffered just as much, but in a very different and more insidious way!