Veterans Hailed As Heroes

And so the casualty figures tick remorselessly upwards. Afghanistan does not of course rank with Vietnam as yet, but sometimes it has that feeling about it. Britain does not contribute the same numbers as your country, but our young men are dying there too.

First we counted the deaths in tens, now in hundreds. And each day our soldiers must put on their body armour and their helmets and step out into the heat to do their duty -- in the knowledge that many here at home in Britain wonder why they are there at all. That makes their bravery even more remarkable.

I recently spent a week in Afghanistan, safely tucked away in a fortified camp in the south of the country, but it did give me the chance to meet American and British armed forces serving there. I talked to a young medic of 19, who had to walk away from a soldier who had been blown to pieces in a minefield. The soldier was alive, but the medic judged he had no chance of survival, and there were others who demanded immediate attention.

Imagine making that kind of decision, in the heat of battle, at age 19. Just a boy. I talked to a group of three whose duty it was to clear a path through IEDs -- Improvised Explosive Devices -- the real killers in Afghanistan. They hear an explosion nearby. One of their pals has died by walking in the wrong spot. But their officer says they must find a way. So they do. They find and disarm four IEDs -- at night -- with the enemy all around. The corporal in charge told me -- 'I stay close with them. I want them to know that I trust them, that I am there, and that if they go, I go too.'

I talked to a soldier who hit a trip wire on patrol late at night, and saw the hand grenade he had triggered rolling in front of him. He turned and fell on that grenade with his pack covering it. He saved the life of his comrades and survived himself. The pack absorbed much of the blast. An extraordinary story.

There are thousands of soldiers out there, from my country and from yours, taking those kind of risks and showing that kind of bravery. I salute them all. They are heroic. But they pay a huge price.

The soldiers I met are terrified not so much by death, but by the prospect of disablement -- of being flown home without legs. That of course will demand a different kind of bravery for the rest of their lives. I have got no magic formula for how we help them. Except to say we should not offer to sacrifice a single one of those boys, unless we are absolutely certain of the cause for which they die.
By Peter Allen