The latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan has been named as Corporal Simon Hornby, 29, from the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

Cpl Hornby was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in the Nad-e-Ali area of Helmand on Saturday. The Liverpudlian’s wife Holly described him as her “hero”.

Cpl Hornby’s death brings the total of British service personnel who have died since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 to 240, including 103 deaths this year.

Cpl Hornby had previously served in Iraq, where he was awarded a commendation for discovering an improvised explosive device and for spoiling an insurgent ambush.

He deployed to Afghanistan as a section commander with Arnhem Company, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment as part of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards Battle Group, according to the Ministry of Defence.

His wife Holly said: “I am devastated by the loss of Simon. “He was proud to be a soldier and died doing the job he loved. He was my hero.” Read on…

Bob McGowan with his medals

Bob McGowan was told he could not claim the £300 subsidy because he moved into his flat just one day too late to qualify.

Despite his age and the six years he spent fighting for his country across Europe, Asia and Africa, the Pension Service said it could not show flexibility.

Mr McGowan, of Portsmouth, has been waging a battle of principle with Whitehall ever since he was turned down for the fuel support in 2007.

He wants an apology from Gordon Brown and says if it is not forthcoming he will post his five medals to 10 Downing Street.

Mr McGowan, who won the Burma Star, the Africa Star, the War Medal 1939 to 1945, the 1939-1945 Star and the Defence Medal following 2,133 days on active duty overseas, said: ‘I think it’s disgusting.

‘It seems I’ve got to bow down over one solitary day, when I did six years overseas.

‘You’d think they would make allowances but they keep saying external factors won’t be considered under any circumstances.

‘What hurts me is I that did all that time overseas and they ignored it – they think more of one solitary day.

‘I’ll hold on to my medals if Gordon Brown will apologise, of course.

‘But if I don’t get satisfactory answers I will send them. I’d like this saga to end. It’s two years and I have had enough of it.” (DailyMail.co.uk)

It’s shocking that his local authorities are adhering so strictly to the rules. McGowan was only one day off from the deadline. It seems like harsh treatment for such a heroic man.

His family and fellow soldiers remembered the best of this brave man:

Schmid, also known as Oz, was from Winchester, Hampshire. His wife, Christina, said: “Oz was a phenomenal husband and loving father who was cruelly murdered during a relentless five-month tour. He was my best friend and soulmate. The pain of losing him is overwhelming. I take comfort knowing he saved countless lives with his hard work. I am so proud of him.”

He added: “To see him out here in Afghanistan was to view a man very much in his element; he simply loved what he did. In fact, you would swear that he was born for it.” (Guardian.co.uk)

His shattered body slumped on a hospital bed, triple amputee Craig Wood tells Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, about his desperate wish to walk again.

At just 18, he is one of the youngest British soldiers to lose three limbs after he was horrifically injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan in July.

Doctors were forced to remove both of his legs and part of his left arm. When he arrived at hospital, he had lost 27 pints of blood and doctors told his family his chance of survival was 50 per cent.

But despite the appalling odds, Craig, of the 2nd Battalion the Rifles, fought back and is now determined to make a good recovery.

He is now one of just three triple amputees in the country to have survived the conflict.

Craig was moved from Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, to the military’s rehabilitation centre at Headley Court, in Surrey, earlier this week and was today undergoing physiotherapy when Camilla stopped by his room.

Craig, along with his parents and his fiancee

The Rifleman, who still bears the terrible facial scars of his ordeal just 11 weeks ago, described his experience – and even asked if he could have his picture taken with the Royal visitor on his mobile phone.

Although he arrived in Afghanistan back in April, the same month that he turned 18, Craig told the Duchess that he was out of action for his first few weeks of duty due to a shoulder injury.

On July 30 he was finally deemed fit enough to out on foot patrol with his colleagues in 2nd Battalion the Rifles.

He had been issued with a device which stops mobile phone signals from activating improvised explosive devices.

But insurgent forces ambushed the soldiers and triggered a lethal wired bomb near to Craig.

A helicopter that had been called to fly him to safety was forced to land and take off in direct gunfire after a battle began between the soldiers and the Taliban.

Craig later said: ‘I’d only been out an hour and a half but I was the only person injured. The nearest person to me was about 10 foot behind but he was fine.
‘The helicopters are absolutely amazing in how fast they get out to you. That’s what saves your life.’

He was put into a drug-induced coma and transferred to hospital in Birmingham where, even as he drifted in and out of consciousness, he began to have a recurring nightmare about losing his limbs.

Unfortunately he contracted a number of serious infections as he fought for life, including MRSA in the tracheotomy in his throat and septicaemia in his wrist, which meant that his hand had to be cut back further by doctors.

He arrived at Headley Court, a forces rehabilitation centre, just a few days ago where he has already discussed prosthetic limbs with his consultant.

Read on…

While I’m glad that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, could visit with these young men and help bolster their spirits, I’m also very sad at the reason they need bolstering. This young man especially. It breaks my heart to think that he was so drastically injured at such a young age. It does warm my heart to see his fiancee still standing by his side. So often this kind of tragedy can cause the spouse to run at the thought of the responsibility it takes to help someone through this kind of life.

A young man by the name of Matthew Weston was serving in Afghanistan when he had the most unfortunate experience of stepping on an IED (improvised explosive device). Amazingly he survived the incident, but it cost him both of his legs, his right arm, and most of his hearing. He has been labeled “the most seriously injured soldier to survive the conflict in Afghanistan.” Disabled at the young age of 20 years. His initial prospect of surviving his injuries wasn’t good, and his family was encouraged to prepare for the worst. Matt pulled through, and his family is thrilled just to have him around – never mind his life-changing injuries.

But apparently there are others who don’t feel this joy. Ever since returning to his home in Britain, Matt has been the subject of taunts and jeers. Teenagers have been hurling insults at him regarding his loss of limbs from the IED. How can they be so heartless? The article has examples of the awful words that Matt has been hearing coming from these terrible teenage lips.
She [Matt's mother] said: ‘When we took him out people said things like “Haven’t you forgotten something? Oh yeah, your legs.”

‘One shouted at him “If you didn’t want to be blown up, don’t go to war.” It’s disgusting.’
Disgusting is right. These insults reveal a mindset of misinformation in these youth. Perhaps they (or more likely, their parents) don’t agree with the political reasons that young soldiers are being sent overseas. Or perhaps these kids are anti-military. But these aren’t reasons (or excuses) to verbally abuse those who have chosen to show their patriotism by signing on with military factions. These soldiers felt it was right to join, enough said. I commend them for that.

So when a soldier comes home wounded, physically or emotionally, we owe them every bit of support that we can give them.

[Connolly] said:  ‘I was near the school when I caught a fleeting glimpse of a motorbike. I told all my lads to expect a bomber.

When the man came back for another pass, Connolly challenged him. He stopped the bike and made a move for the toggle switch installed on the bike. Did Connolly go for his gun? Oh no, guns aren’t for real men. Instead he Chuck Norris-style tackles the man sitting on 154 pounds of explosives, bodily removing him from the bike.

Connolly doesn’t think he’s done anything brave or heroic. But we’re all entitled to disagree with him, and this week he will be awarded the Military Cross in honor of his actions.

Brown said Farrell was “now safe and well, receiving support from embassy staff and undergoing medical checks.” Read on…

Harry Patch was a young apprentice plumber when war broke out and was called into service in 1916. He didn’t agree with war and was reluctant to go.

Born in southwest England in 1898, Mr. Patch was a teenage apprentice plumber when he was called up for military service in 1916. After training, he was sent to the trenches as a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

The five-man Lewis gun team had a pact to try not to kill any enemy soldiers, but to aim at their legs unless it came down to killing or being killed, he said.

Mr. Patch was part of the third battle of Ypres in Belgium. The offensive began on July 31, 1917, and it rained all but three days of August. It was not until Nov. 6, 1917, that British and Canadian forces had progressed five miles to capture what was left of the village of Passchendaele. The cost was 325,000 Allied casualties and 260,000 Germans.

Mr. Patch’s war had ended on Sept. 22, when he was seriously wounded by shrapnel, which killed three other members of his machine-gun team.

“My reaction was terrible; it was losing a part of my life,” he said.

After losing the majority of his team, Patch was taken to a hospital, where he had to have the shrapnel removed from his body without the aid of anesthesia. He and the other machine gun team survivor both agreed never to share the details of their comrades deaths with the families. For them it was too horrible to share.

World War I was a brutal and grisly event – a dark time in world history. The advent of new weapons technology meant that the killing could be done with horrific efficiency. It was war in a way that no one ever dreamed of being possible. This post is in memory of, not only Harry Patch, but all the brave soldiers who endured hell in the trenches.

Click here to read the entire article about Harry Patch. Defininely read it.

BBC News – The Art Fund charity says there is also support for issuing a series of stamps, dedicated to each person who has died, by official war artist Steve McQueen.

Among the 2,082 adults it surveyed in January, 70% backed such an idea.

The Royal Mail has so far declined the idea of issuing the stamps, saying a period of reflection is needed.

Mr McQueen has created the stamps in his work Queen and Country, each dedicated to a member of the armed forces who has lost their life in Iraq.

He is now calling for Royal Mail to issue them for public use.

According to the survey for The Art Fund, seven out of 10 Britons think the stamps would be a fitting way to pay tribute to the 175 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq since the conflict began in 2003.

David Barrie, director of The Art Fund, said: “I very much hope Royal Mail will recognise the strength of support for the issue of the stamps, coming as it does both from the relatives of those who have lost their lives in Iraq and from the wider British public.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said that the role and sacrifice of Britain’s servicemen and women played a key role in its special stamps programme every year.

But he said Royal Mail believed that “a period of reflection would be required to do justice to a subject of such gravity as the current and ongoing conflict in Iraq, and any other conflict”.

An online petition to make the stamps public has been organised by The Art Fund and the Queen and Country exhibition is on display at London’s Imperial War Museum. (source)

I personally think that this is a great idea. We all need to remember these brave people who died for something they believed in. I know there continues to be debate and controversy over whether the war being fought is right or noble. But when these people offer themselves to their home country and they are sent far from home to die in the field, they deserve everything we can give their memory. I think the U.S. should consider doing the same idea (if it hasn’t been mentioned already – a quick Google search didn’t reveal any soldier stamps).

When Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher activated a trip wire while on a night reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan, he didn’t think twice. He immediately threw himself in the way of the blast to protect his comrades.

“I felt a bit guilty for setting the device off,” he later said. “I thought that the best course of action for everyone including myself was to lie right next to the grenade, point my body armour towards it with my day sack and take the brunt of the explosion and see what happens from there.”

Miraculously, he escaped with only minor injuries and his fellow servicemen emerged almost unscathed, save for a minor shrapnel wound.

Truly an amazing man. With perhaps a little luck on the side. Croucher was awarded the George Cross for his heroic actions during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.