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Source: Reuters -
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Isn't it a case of simply asking "Will you...?" and they reply "Yes" and we all live happily ever after?
Sadly, the rules of engagement in war not only appear less clear cut, evidence would suggest they are. There are no goodies and baddies like I was told as a boy. Everyone claims to have God on their side.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry that he has no regrets over Britain's involvement in the war there. He told the inquiry that he never shortchanged the war effort and despite tightening budgets, he always allowed provision for the right equipment for Britain's fighters. No surprises there!
But he did express sadness at the loss of British lives.
And the next day he even went to Afghanistan to see his troops to say thanks for all their hard work.
But the British death toll in their two main theatres of war, Iraq and Afghanistan, is still mounting, the losses coming in what is now dirty warfare.
Everyone's playing hard but where is the fair bit? Whatever happened to that Geneva Convention? What about that story of frontline German and Allied soldiers during WWI throwing down their arms and having a game of football on Christmas Day?
Gordon Brown tells us today, blame for much of the British death toll rests with the enemy's increasing use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) - or what most of us now know, after watching The Hurt Locker, are dirty roadside bombs. Now that's not fair is it?
Oh yeah, of course the Brits and the US are dropping bombs on civilians, by mistake naturally, and then there's that interrogation tactic used called waterboarding. That's not really torture is it? I think it used to be when the baddies did it, but that was then and this is now. And the rules have changed, we're told. I forgot, there are no rules, except for the ones that the enemy seem to break.
So in this haze of lawless warfare, we have a new hero.
Rifleman James McKie of the British Army's 3 Rifles forgot all those rules and resorted to the most basic instinct we've got. The desire to live. Under attack from the Taliban in the most dangerous of provinces in Afghanistan, he had a grenade land at his feet and had just a few seconds to probably yell an expletive and then consider "death or life". He chose life and threw the grenade back but not without sustaining injuries to himself and his commander.
Rifleman McKie, formerly of Wellington, saved his own life and those of two of his mates.
James McKie seems a typical unassuming Kiwi. He doesn't want all that hero talk. He's just doing what anyone else would have done, he says.
But this week six other comrades from his Sangin base in Afghanistan have died.
This remains a war where happily ever after is still a long way away.
