| Topic: | A young man in a geriatric ward | |
| Posted by: | Fraser Pearce | |
| Date/Time: | 29/05/07 11:01:00 |
| We spent yesterday with my step-brother. He’d returned after spending the weekend visiting a W., friend in hospital with serious eye injuries. My brother was in the army regiment that, after running out of ammunition, had to fix bayonets in Iraq and stab ‘insurgents’ to death. He left the army. W. – my brother’s best friend – is still in uniform. W. was seriously injured earlier this month in Afghanistan. A colleague died and 3 or 4 others are in intensive care. W. was flown home to England to a hospital a fair way away from his family. Due to a lack of beds, W. was placed on a geriatric ward where, apparently, the noise from other patients can be fearsome. My brother’s a tough cookie, taciturn, old school. He cried like a child yesterday at the injuries and treatment of his friend. He felt W.’s been dumped on an inadequate NHS, forsaken and forgotten. While our politicians grin and gurn, go on farewell tours and agitate for office, young men and women are still placed in harm’s way with inadequate materiel, inadequate protection and no clear strategy of engagement. When serving, our soldiers are sitting ducks for drug lords and the Taliban. When injured, a young man can be expected to be repatriated and dumped in a geriatric ward. We won’t forget you, Messrs Blair and Brown. |