25th January

Chris didn’t make any notes in his diary today. Instead, we’re sharing just one of the many kind messages of support he and the lads received from notable public figures, friends and family while on tour.

‘We’re ‘ere because we’re ‘ere’ was the fatalistic chant of the men at the front in the First World War. They had no choice and the ‘citizens in uniform’, drafted from their peaceful lives to become warriors and defenders of freedom, fought bravely and stoically and will be forever remembered, if not individually, then certainly collectively.

There is a famous photo from the Second World War that shows a soldier in slouch hat running through the shallows towards the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He is wearing round glasses and looks totally unlike any standard preconception we could have of the soldier warrior. He just looks like someone’s dad. Most likely he was. Or maybe, like most soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought those wars for us, he was too young to be a dad, he hadn’t seen life, sowed his wild oats, truly tasted the passions and pains of life. ‘Warriors’, when stripped of their armour usually turn out to be callow young men barely out of their teens. These are the ‘heroes’ fighting for the values and ideals we hold so high. True heroism is to give up all the potential and comforts that life offers and instead endure hardships, suffer the uncertainties and fears that separation brings, and finally risk death or disfigurement. Today’s
soldiers, sailors and airmen do not have to don uniform, shrink down under fire in slit trenches, put their whole lives on the line. They choose to do so. They and their fellow ‘warriors’ would lay their lives down for each other, feel guilt at any period of leave away from their unit, develop a camaraderie and understanding of humanity that we at our desks and in our comfy beds can never achieve. ‘Courage’, said Winston Churchill, ‘is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because… it is the quality that guarantees all others.’ These young men have a courage that we can only envy, but will probably never have. We should thank our maker for those who have it, are not rewarded for it and will probably never be widely known.

Best wishes,
Phil Reed OBE
Director, Churchill War Rooms