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- Apr 12, 2005
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Hi,
Sent to me by a former Royal Marine.
I was asked to pass it on.
Probably many of you have already seen it.
They will then be routed down side roads to avoid nearby Carterton – a town almost exactly the same size as Wootton Bassett – and make their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford 26 June 2011 1:08 AM
As Dave 'does the talking', war dead are sneaked out of the back gate
This is Peter's Mail on Sunday column
The flag-wrapped coffins of dead servicemen are to be driven out of the back gate of RAF Brize Norton when it takes over from Lyneham (a few weeks from now) as the arrival point for the fallen.
Oxford along A-roads and bypasses. There’ll be a small guard of honour near the hospital entrance (there already is) but somehow or other the cortege won’t go down any High Streets.
I will tell you in a moment what the official excuses are for this. I should have thought the mere words ‘back gate’ would tell most people all they need to know about this decision.
And despite the Prime Minister’s oily award of the title ‘Royal’ to Wootton Bassett, you can bet that he’d much rather the public scenes of grief and remembrance in that place had never happened, and that nobody noticed the frequent deaths his weakness and political cowardice are causing.
In the same way, the Defence Ministry has almost completely succeeded in covering up the appalling numbers of men who have been gravely injured in Afghanistan because the Government hasn’t the guts to quit this meaningless war. We hardly ever see them. Were they all to be assembled in one photograph, the nation would demand instant withdrawal and probably get it.
The official version is that the families of the dead will be using a new ‘Repatriation Centre’ at Brize Norton, and that it is near the back gate. Routing the hearses through the base might disrupt its normal operations.
And here’s what was said by Andrew Robathan, whose stirring title is ‘Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans’. Speaking to Radio Oxford, he explained: ‘The side gate was seen by the Ministry of Defence and the police as the most appropriate way to take out future corteges.’
I love that word ‘appropriate’, the favourite adjective of those who have quietly forsaken the idea that there are such things as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
He continued: ‘I am not sure taking coffins in hearses past schools, past families, past married quarters is necessarily the thing that everybody would wish to see . . . the focus must be on the families of the dead service personnel. They are the people who care most. That is where our focus is.’
This is a curious statement. None of us exactly ‘wishes’ to see a funeral going by. But surely death should not be hidden away. And surely it is right that all of us – especially the young and service families – should be reminded of the price of courage and duty, and given the opportunity to salute these fine things.
You can believe the various official excuses. Or you might recall that until (in April 2008) this newspaper highlighted the way the hearses were left to fight their way through indifferent traffic, even cut up by impatient motorists at roundabouts, they did not get a police escort for the final few miles to the hospital.
Mr Cameron says that he will do the talking about war, and the commanders should do the fighting. Well, he may have a point there, or he would if he were not militarily and diplomatically clueless.
But he might also mention that while he is doing the talking, real men are doing the dying, and their families are doing the weeping.
Personally, I don’t think he or his Government colleagues are grown-up enough to pay the price of their own vanity and bombast. So they sneak the dead out by the back gate, and hope it doesn’t get on the TV.
Sent to me by a former Royal Marine.
I was asked to pass it on.
Probably many of you have already seen it.
They will then be routed down side roads to avoid nearby Carterton – a town almost exactly the same size as Wootton Bassett – and make their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford 26 June 2011 1:08 AM
As Dave 'does the talking', war dead are sneaked out of the back gate
This is Peter's Mail on Sunday column
The flag-wrapped coffins of dead servicemen are to be driven out of the back gate of RAF Brize Norton when it takes over from Lyneham (a few weeks from now) as the arrival point for the fallen.
Oxford along A-roads and bypasses. There’ll be a small guard of honour near the hospital entrance (there already is) but somehow or other the cortege won’t go down any High Streets.
I will tell you in a moment what the official excuses are for this. I should have thought the mere words ‘back gate’ would tell most people all they need to know about this decision.
And despite the Prime Minister’s oily award of the title ‘Royal’ to Wootton Bassett, you can bet that he’d much rather the public scenes of grief and remembrance in that place had never happened, and that nobody noticed the frequent deaths his weakness and political cowardice are causing.
In the same way, the Defence Ministry has almost completely succeeded in covering up the appalling numbers of men who have been gravely injured in Afghanistan because the Government hasn’t the guts to quit this meaningless war. We hardly ever see them. Were they all to be assembled in one photograph, the nation would demand instant withdrawal and probably get it.
The official version is that the families of the dead will be using a new ‘Repatriation Centre’ at Brize Norton, and that it is near the back gate. Routing the hearses through the base might disrupt its normal operations.
And here’s what was said by Andrew Robathan, whose stirring title is ‘Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans’. Speaking to Radio Oxford, he explained: ‘The side gate was seen by the Ministry of Defence and the police as the most appropriate way to take out future corteges.’
I love that word ‘appropriate’, the favourite adjective of those who have quietly forsaken the idea that there are such things as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
He continued: ‘I am not sure taking coffins in hearses past schools, past families, past married quarters is necessarily the thing that everybody would wish to see . . . the focus must be on the families of the dead service personnel. They are the people who care most. That is where our focus is.’
This is a curious statement. None of us exactly ‘wishes’ to see a funeral going by. But surely death should not be hidden away. And surely it is right that all of us – especially the young and service families – should be reminded of the price of courage and duty, and given the opportunity to salute these fine things.
You can believe the various official excuses. Or you might recall that until (in April 2008) this newspaper highlighted the way the hearses were left to fight their way through indifferent traffic, even cut up by impatient motorists at roundabouts, they did not get a police escort for the final few miles to the hospital.
Mr Cameron says that he will do the talking about war, and the commanders should do the fighting. Well, he may have a point there, or he would if he were not militarily and diplomatically clueless.
But he might also mention that while he is doing the talking, real men are doing the dying, and their families are doing the weeping.
Personally, I don’t think he or his Government colleagues are grown-up enough to pay the price of their own vanity and bombast. So they sneak the dead out by the back gate, and hope it doesn’t get on the TV.
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