It’s always a reflective time of year — a moment to pause and think about what we’ve done, what we’ve achieved, what we’ve failed to achieve, and those we’ve lost along the way. It’s also a time to remember the steel-hard generations who fought wars on our behalf long before we were born.
As a serviceman — and especially as a former Royal Marine, Para, or infantry soldier — you see things differently. You understand not only the danger, but the daily discomfort, the grind of endurance, and the cold, wet exhaustion that can soak your spirit into the ground.
Magnify Dartmoor, Brecon, or Sennybridge on a freezing, rain-swept November exercise — and then think of the Somme. Recall that deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq — and think of the Eighth Army in the desert. Remember a contact in Belfast or XMG, and imagine house-to-house combat against hardened opposition in occupied Europe after fighting your way from the coast. Think of that jungle exercise in Brunei, then imagine the Chindits battling through the jungle against the Japanese, miles from anywhere.
The generations of the World Wars fought in those places and thought of it simply as their duty. Did they break the mould when they passed? I don’t believe so. A recent visit to CTCRM — the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines — reassured me that we still have a brilliant training system, the same uncompromising standards, and, most importantly, the same ethos.
From a personal perspective, my service made me a better person. It challenged me, shaped me, and I would not change a thing about it. But there are always two sides to the coin. Others — and I can still picture their faces today — were not so fortunate. They paid the ultimate price for serving their country.
Here’s the difference: like me, those I joined and served alongside were volunteers. We sought the comradeship, the excitement, the adventure — and accepted that meant being ready to fight when needed. The older generations before us were mostly peaceful men, drawn by love of country to defend their homes and families. Their choices were limited. It was fight or die.
Today is a day to remember all of them — and to ask that uncomfortable, perhaps even taboo, question that more and more Britons are beginning to ask:
Was the sacrifice worth it?
For the first time, I have my doubts. I’ve never questioned it before. But after another calamitous year of sell-outs, shambolic leadership, corruption, and a tide of illegal arrivals greater in number than our entire Army — with those in power more concerned with their human rights rather than the children of the generation that fought to defend this country — I find myself wondering what those men and women would make of the Britain they died to protect.
