Regardless of the politics of the piece, these people died in doing their duty. Well done Radio Four for giving over the time to read out those 179 names.

They shall not grow old as we who are left 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.

Makes you stop for a while & ponder things

we owe them a great deal indeed

Hopefully the thread will remain repectful. Those wishing to comment on the politics of the situation can easily start a new thread.

We will remember them.

I hope the government will remember their families.

The most fitting remembrance would be a concerted attempt to stop it and yet it goes on and on.

The war to end all wars seems not to have happened yet.

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, “What are they marching for?”
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Still annoys me that Steve McQueen’s stamp thing never materialised. Not a fan of the war but it seemed a very succinct way to remember those who had passed.

I’ve just checked on Wikipedia, news.bbc.co.uk, and I still can’t work out who the 179 names are? 😳

The only thing I’ll remember is that their lives were wasted 🙁

They followed the article with a chat with/about Max Clifford (imagine me spitting as I mention his name)promoting the sufferers of Swine fever for financial gain….
They did die for their country they were brave it was a waste it always is. The politicians should be ashamed for this …happy to send someone elses children of to die but not their own or themselves.
Nice touch by the BBC though.

The only thing I’ll remember is that their lives were wasted

Reason enough to remember them.

The political thread is elsewhere SFB.

Sorry if this was mentioned before.
Sadly Alex Lees died yesterday at the age of 97. He was one of the ‘great escapees’. A brave man. A hero (correct use of the word here) to many.
R.I.P.

He saw a lot of things in 97 years – a good life & a good innings

I will remember and I will teach my son of the sacrifice others have made! Hopefully he will teach his kids and so on. So it will always be remembered!

Re: Alex Lees, after reading his obituary I hope it wouldn’t be too disrespectful to have a little smile at the thought that they could scatter his ashes by means of the bags inside the trousers & shuffling around the garden whilst allowing them to empty
I’m sure he would have had a chuckle at that thought

RIP Alex

Well done those men and women for carrying out a difficult task with consumate professionalism. I’m with SFB that they should not have been there in Iraq, to here the senior Americans bad mouthing our soldiers’ efforts was galling.

And I can’t help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Uplink, laughter out of something sad! Marvellous 🙂

I’ve just checked on Wikipedia, news.bbc.co.uk, and I still can’t work out who the 179 names are?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7912865.stm#iraq

Reading of the names was live on 5Live this morning. Not the most uplifting start to the day, but I felt no urge to change channels.

179 would appear not to include the foreign personnel who also got their names read this morning. The woman reading the Italian names had a long list of Carabinieri – 12th November 2003 was repeated so much that I remembered the date to look it up just now – 18 Italians died in a car bomb attack on a police station.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 – March, 1918

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7912865.stm#iraq

God they’re young.

I’m sorry but I personally think it’s inappropriate to focus so much attention on the loss of 179 British lives, without even mentioning the tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of iraqis who were also killed.

Mogrim- We were all young once. 😀 Some of us chose to gamble. 😥

Grumm – 2 questions, ever served in the forces and secondly how many did Saddam kill of his own people…. They deserve nothing but respect giving their lives no matter what the politics

I’m sorry but I personally think it’s inappropriate to focus so much attention on the loss of 179 British lives, without even mentioning the tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of iraqis who were also killed

You could be talk’n millions, Grumm. FoL is we are looking at things from a “British” perspective.

Grumm – 2 questions, ever served in the forces and secondly how many did Saddam kill of his own people…. They deserve nothing but respect giving their lives no matter what the politics

I never said anything about politics. Perhaps I missed it, but I was quite shocked that there was no mention in any of the coverage I saw of any of the Iraqi deaths.

I don’t see the relevance of whether I have served in the armed forces or what Saddam did.

You’re service is irrellevant,Grumm. The “enemy” has been vanquished. Don’t expect “us” to honour them equally.

grumm – Member
I’m sorry but I personally think it’s inappropriate to focus so much attention on the loss of 179 British lives, without even mentioning the tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of iraqis who were also killed.

It’s entirely appropriate. The British servicemen and women who died should be honoured. They died because they put their lives on the line for the benefit of this country.

The correctness of our being in Iraq is another issue altogether. Personally I believe that we went there on a lie for political ends. In the process we removed a vicious dictator, but made a hell of a mess of the subsequent occupation – but that is the fault of the politicians, not the service people.

So let us honour them.

I never said anything about the correctness of being in iraq, I just think it is tasteless and offensive to be honouring the British dead in such a high profile way without even a mention of the much greater casualties suffered by iraqis.

I feel sympathy for the soldiers and their families, but no more than I do for the Iraqi casualties.

grumm… on R4 last night they did comment about the thousands of Iraqi deaths, and made a point of stating that to read them out would have taken over 10 hours…

grumm… on R4 last night they did comment about the thousands of Iraqi deaths, and made a point of stating that to read them out would have taken over 10 hours…

Good. There was no mention of it on the extensive BBC news coverage I saw.

would have taken over 10 hours…

What? Eh? Haven’t we got the economy to be thinking about…

BBC/R4 last night was humbling and I truly believe that our dead of this war should be honoured by us. Whatever the reason young people join the forces they know that one day the call could come and they will not be coming back. The goverment calls and they go, I respect them greatly.
My respect for the the politicians is………….another thread, who will start it?

One other thing who is remembering the soldiers that made it back without the full use of there bodies. Perhaps some support for them, have you see any reports on the solider still trying to finish the London Marathon?

This may be a little controversial but I think it also worth noting that, despite the fact that its 179 too many people to have died, its very few for 6 years of conflict and effectively the take-over of a country bigger than the UK. That can fairly be attributed to the skills and technological abilities of our armed forces, which is something to be celebrated.
Whether it was right or wrong, I hope they can go forward and rebuild their country in a better way than before.

mt- http://www.philpacker.com/ – seems like a really nice bloke, I’m sure he’ll get round it.

I found it hard to look at database on the beeb, so young many of them 🙁

as for civilian deaths – http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

I reckon they were sent there at the wrong time and for the wrong reason by politicians who lied to all of us.

What a f-cking waste of human life. Have we learned nothing?

The “enemy” has been vanquished

Which enemy ? Vanquished when ? Lets not tart up political opportunism as anything else. Lots of people have died pointlessly, to no benefit to anyone that I can see 🙁

Crikey; where did that bit of a poem come from? Edit Got it now.

“They died because they put their lives on the line for the benefit of this country…The correctness of our being in Iraq is another issue altogether. “

Unfortunately, that second sentence conflicts with the first, and goes to the heart of the problem.

shouldn’t that read ‘benefit of Tony Blair’s ego’. Their deaths were probably to the detriment of their country long term, but unfortunately they didn’t have a choice in the matter. A total waste of human life.

Why do few heed rows of whitened crosses,
A country’s tribute, to suffering and to cost.
Nor contemplate the resting place of others,
an unmarked sanctuary of legions ever lost.

Long they rest without any grave or marker,
some in hidden depths, many fathoms deep.
Or lie beneath sands, or shrouding jungle,
Let none disturb, let warrior legions sleep.

Missing legions, each man’s fate forgotten,
time erases memory, those living one by one.
Soon none remain, gone cherished visions,
remembrance fades, lost each mother’s son.

Gone those comrades who long remembered,
all the ranks of remembrance, thinning fast.
The bugles muted, all the cannons silenced,
soon the realm of history, scenes of the past.

It’s too few read history, so too few reflect,
the path of human folly, ways destiny is set.
Too few note the price, the price of freedom,
a debt to returned, lost or fallen…lest we forget.

These young brave men and women have made britian what it is today, we owe them all so much respect.
Another year and ill be joinging them