Whose Britain is it?

White Genocide And The World Is Silent

Dan Roodt South Africa

During the time of National Party reforms in the seventies and eighties, the cliché "adapt or die" used to do the rounds. Nowadays, given the highest murder rate in the world, this should be modified slightly to read, "adapt and die". For the endemic social violence in South Africa is probably incurable.


Optimists think that violent crime can be solved through better policing, more efficient courts and more secure prisons. Even assuming that such improvements were possible under conditions of hard-core affirmative action, it must be admitted that criminal justice treats the symptom and not the cause of social violence. The Department of Correctional Services, for one, has lost 496 out of 500 former Deputy Directors since 1994, representing most of the intellectual capital in the department. Newcomers may learn their job properly, or they may not, but they have to be flown to overseas countries to find out how prisons work as most of those previously involved in managing our prisons are no longer there.


South Africa used to have a problem of political violence. It was not as bad as elsewhere in Africa, but for some reason elicited hysterical international condemnation. However, actors in political violence are mostly driven by some sort of creed or belief system. Whether such a person is a communist, an anarchist, a neo-Nazi or an ethnic or religious guerilla fighter, he is usually amenable to persuasion or compromise. Even a group of Muslim suicide bombers might declare peace if they were given a territory in which to set up an Islamic theocracy, governed only by themselves and not subject to any outside influence.


In the same way, South Africa's so-called liberation movements who were at one time fanatically convinced of the need for violent and bloody revolution, laid down arms and bombs upon being told that F.W. de Klerk would surrender power unconditionally. Solving political violence is often intractable, but not impossible. Not so social violence. Endemic crime, the breakdown of the social fabric, a sense of drift regarding norms of good conduct, point to a far deeper problem. The freedom fighter or urban terrorist is ultimately rational, despite a value system that normal society might find idiosyncratic.


But what is "normal society"? It is only the sum-total of behaviours prevalent in any given society at any given time. The Aztecs, infamously, practised daily human sacrifice to appease their sun god. It might revolt many of us today, but to them it was entirely normal. South Africa currently sacrifices about 87 humans per day to violent crime, or 32 000 per year. Those are only the ones who actually die. Scores of others are injured, maimed, traumatised, robbed, raped, burgled and so on.


In any suburb today an entire history of murders, hijackings, and other violent events can be written, if only the locals were narcissistic enough to consider their own history worth recording for posterity. On the other hand, social violence lacks the charm and grandeur of political violence as it is usually not committed in the interest of some glamorous cause like national liberation or world revolution but simply to acquire some hapless person's BMW or rape his wife because she happened to be inside.


However, some time ago a Johannesburg newspaper engaged in chronicling some local history in the suburbs of Westdene and Lakefield in Benoni. Nearly every resident had a story to tell, an entire litany of mayhem. Mr. John Gee miraculously survived a shot through the eye, but now feels traumatised. His wife says, "One lives in fear in one's own home. One does not sleep. One prays for protection, yet only more fears come."


But who are the authors of South Africa's social violence? Even asking this question presents one with a sense of discomfort, because most violent criminals in South Africa are young black men between the ages of 16 and 36. As one surgeon who had stitched together at least three child rape victims, two of whom were infants, said recently, "Probably white men commit such acts too; it is just that no-one in South Africa has come across such a case." Of course, it would be preposterous to say that all young black men are prone to violence.


Judging from our daily experiences in crime-torn South Africa, however, a sub-section of that population, large enough to cause more havoc than even a well-equipped guerrilla army of a few thousand men, has taken up practices such as heists, hold-ups, murders, sexual violence exacted upon women and children, and so on.


Explanations for such deviancy are manifold. The ubiquitous answer of it being due to apartheid might have been satisfying if other African societies never subject to group areas and a homeland system did not display similar traits. The Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone come to mind. There is a whole nature/nurture debate around black violence, except that no adherent of the "nature" side would publicly admit to being one, for fear of being branded a racist. Even though mainstream American cancer research has conclusively shown that black men have higher levels of testosterone than their white counterparts, few would hazard the notion that this might be linked to their greater propensity for violent crime.


America has a gargantuan prison population of two million, over half of which consists of African-Americans. This is despite their minority status in the USA, comprising only 12% of an overall population amounting to 290 million. South Africa could neither afford nor succeed, given the dire state of our criminal justice system, in jailing a similar number of black male offenders. Currently, only 10% of murderers in South Africa get arrested and only 6% are convicted. Any murderer therefore has a 94% chance of getting away with it.


If by some miracle all serious criminals in the country had to be caught and imprisoned, the prison population would surely treble or quadruple from the present 200 000, which is already high by world standards. Not only is such an improvement inconceivable under current conditions, but it would also be politically unpopular with the ruling ANC who would be incarcerating large numbers of young black males who are mostly its own supporters at the polls. Few whites, if any, commit violent crime and there are only 3 900 of them in prison, mostly for white-collar offences such as fraud or insider trading on the stock exchange.


All that remains in the world's most violent society, is precisely to adapt and die. Twice as many South Africans of all races now die of murder than of road accidents - even though the road accident rate is also the highest in the world, surpassing that of Turkey. Crime extends to trade in driver's licences, so that a large number of drivers use so-called "bought licences", hardly a contribution to road safety.


There are some people naive enough to think that "something can be done about crime" in South Africa, mostly opposition politicians who dream about diverting funds from arms procurement to policing, but this would be futile. There are already three times as many private security personnel as state-employed policemen, and even they do not succeed in containing what has become Africa's only peacetime killing field.


"I killed them because they were white." These famous words were spoken last year by William Kekana, who participated in one of the most horrendous incidents in which the entire family of Mr. Clifford Rawstorne was wiped out, consisting of his fiancée, baby, as well as his own mother. Even this massacre of an entire family would not have made headlines, were it not for the fact that one year-old Kayla was executed on her very first birthday with a shot in the head. Needless to say, the two adult women were first raped before being killed. Both William Kekana and his accomplice, Charles Fido Baloyi, fell into the high-risk group of young black (and Coloured) males who commit almost all violent crime in the country.


South Africa actually has a Minister of Safety and Security, which to some might seem like an example of absurd humour. His Excellency Mr. Charles Nqakula, whose official résumé proudly states that he was once "a waiter and wine steward", has immortalised himself by euphemistically stating that there was no real crime problem in South Africa, except that it was "a little on the high side".


All in all, South Africa has got remarkably used to its new-found status as the crime capital of the world. The high-rise districts of Hillbrow and Berea in Johannesburg have been officially designated by Interpol as having the highest murder rate in the world, that is, 600 people per 100 000 population members per annum. Consider for a moment that such a figure represents 12 times the rate found in inner-city ghettoes in the United States, often seen as no-go zones by many Americans.


One British immigrant to South Africa who has survived three car hijackings, refuses to emigrate, stating that he is now accustomed to having Kalachnikovs pointed at him from pointblank range. Everyone knows a relative or friend who has been killed or at least subjected to some form of violent crime, and no South African can remotely imagine a society where people do not live behind razor wire, electrified fences, high walls, burglar bars and similar decorative props.


Outsiders might find our lifestyle bizarre, but many pundits in South Africa consider our society to be much more "normal" now than at any time in the past, which was tarnished by ethnic separation albeit without the present large-scale violence. At the height of segregation and apartheid under Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was almost as peaceful as Switzerland but she was immoral. Today we are the apotheosis of racial morality and political correctness, yet as violent as the Congo or Liberia. Surprisingly, however, our economy continues to function amid the carnage. No economist has ever studied this as far as I know, but not only is crime our biggest industry - bigger than gold-mining or manufacturing - it also stimulates consumption as stolen goods are replaced; it is a boon to the insurance and security industries and ultimately makes surgeons and undertakers rich. The government earns billions of rands in Value-Added Tax on stolent goods being replaced with new ones. So crime pays.


News about killings or shoot-outs no longer elicits the slightest surprise. It is part of our daily existence, and one assumes the lethal risks attending to something as simple as going shopping or driving to work. My wife, for example, has twice been to the local shopping centre where in the one instance a shoot-out was taking place in the parking area so that she had to hide between the cars with our 18 month-old son in her arms; in the second case an armed robbery had just taken place with the robbers casually strolling by with their guns and their loot.


Everyone knows someone who has been killed, raped or maimed. Just this week, the wife of a friend and former literary editor of Die Burger, François Smith, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in their home in Wellington, near Cape Town. Her murderer was a 16-year-old squatter camp resident whose race was omitted by the press but presumably few, if any whites, reside in his particular squatter camp which is dedicated to black Africans. Lisbé Smuts-Smith was a well-known academic and head of the Afrikaans literature department at the University of Cape Town. Just two weeks ago, another UCT academic, mathematician Brian Hahn, was attacked by a former student, dr. Maleafisha Steve Tladi (35). Hahn died in hospital a week
later, while Tladi was released on bail of R500 (about $80).


Two years ago Louw Rabie, a brilliant albeit reclusive geologist and brother of author Jan Rabie, was beaten to death with a fence pole by two Coloured men to whom he had lent some money a week earlier. Police in the small Cape town of Montagu readily caught his murderers because they happened to have drinking money during the week, taken from his home. He was 80 years old, but in good health. He is reputed to have been one of the most brilliant geologists and intellectuals this country has ever produced, writing copiously throughout his life but disdaining publication and public esteem. Africans with their oral tradition are fond of saying that "when an old person dies, a library burns down". What strikes me about the relentless killings of educated whites, is that the criminals are indeed "burning down the libraries" of this country and physically exterminating the intellectual class, much like Pol Pot did in Cambodia.


The media are celebrating youth, dance, colour, being black and exuberant - as opposed to the quiet studiousness of middle-aged and elderly whites, the bearers of knowledge and understanding. Are these learned whites who are being killed in exuberant, paradisiacal outbreaks of violence simply the remnants of a civilisation that is being eradicated in the name of decolonisation? No government spokesman has ever condemned such killings; so we may assume that the present regime is completely indifferent to them, where such killings do not enjoy their tacit support.


Around our local school in the past week there have been two car hijackings, as well as one murder. It is not really considered to be an exceptionally violent area. Most of this is not even reported in the press, because there really is not enough space and ordinary crime is no longer newsworthy. It needs some further sadistic element to make the front page, such as babies getting killed or raped, or elderly farmers being tortured to death. Farming in South Africa is now arguably the most dangerous profession in the world with more than 1600 farmers murdered since 1994, often in macabre and dehumanising ways.


To the outside world, white South Africans are congenitally evil. If our murderers and rapists had been white and their victims black, Europe or the United States would long ago have sent an expeditionary force to put a stop to it. At present, news of white suffering in South Africa inspires the occasional yawn in Western capitals. This is why a recent article in The Despatch, detailing the rape of a dog by three black men, gave me some hope that a chord will be struck somewhere in the coolly indifferent breasts of our fellow-Westerners. Even if the lives of Louw Rabie, Brian Hahn, Lisbé Smuts-Smith, Kayla Rawstorne and tens of thousands of others are of no value to them, perhaps they will take pity on the mongrel bitch in Grahamstown that was recently raped by three black men. Or perhaps two black men, as the third one protested his innocence upon being dragged out of the shack by screaming, "I came here to relieve myself. These two were raping the dog when I arrived!" Cruelty to humans, especially white humans, is today a normal feature of our society, just like human sacrifice used to be in the culture of the Aztecs. Cruelty to animals, or non-consensual sex with dogs, may still evoke some sympathy, not only locally, but also internationally. I therefore feel sorry for Masganda - the name of the dog concerned - who was rescued with a bleeding vagina and in need of veterinary attention, but perhaps this lowly creature of uncertain lineage could become a martyr for our cause in alerting opinion-makers and political leaders of our plight.


Cycling has become a popular sport in South Africa. However, its practitioners regularly get shot at by gangs of black youths in the street, so that many of them carry guns and knives for self-defence on their bicycles. Members of the Johannesburg mountain-bike club were outraged a while ago when two cyclists, Scott and Lloyd Griffith, were charged with murder after an armed battle with their four black assailants, one of whom succumbed to his wounds.


Most of the time, however, whites are helpless victims of crime. The government has recently passed a new gun law which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to own a fire-arm. They have also abolished rural commandos of military reservists entrusted with crime-prevention in the country, without any police units replacing them. Occasionally the newspapers carry stories of crime victims successfully defending themselves against attacks, offering armed resistance. As a result of the new gun law, this will soon end and we shall simply be able to hide or flee from our assailants. Defending oneself against a marauding robber or rapist might be a manifestation of racism, and is therefore frowned upon as being a kind of "right-wing" response.


Being robbed of one's vehicle or household belongings is now considered quite normal, and often people ascribe escaping with their lives to their own astuteness, such as being friendly to the robber, helping him load the effects into a vehicle, not looking him in the face so as not to recognise him afterwards, et cetera. A friend of mine in Kempton Park kept up a reasonable conversation with the thieves emptying his house, tied up as he was with a gun pointed at him. He survived, although his elderly mother was badly roughed up and had to be hospitalised. In other instances, of course, people are not so lucky and they become just another murder statistic. Then they simply adapt and die.


*


The first draft of this article was submitted to the British Spectator, who turned it down about a year ago. I have now updated it with references to more recent incidents. Probably no mainstream newspaper in South Africa will publish it, because it refers to the race and gender of violent criminals, which is taboo here as elsewhere in the Western world. As George Orwell said, however, "during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act".


In the interest of drawing attention to the anarchy that exists in South Africa, the author qualifies his copyright on this article and invites everyone to post it on his or her website, copy it and mail it to friends and mailing lists, translate it into other languages and to distribute it far and wide. The only condition is that no element must be changed or censored.

Evelyn De Morgan

How Gordon Brown's podcast turned an immigration rise into a fall

By James Slack

Labour last night faced damaging claims it had 'misled' the public by claiming immigration is falling sharply - when it is likely be on the rise again.

In a rare intervention, Gordon Brown yesterday released figures which he claimed showed a steep 16,000 reduction in the net level of immigration into Britain last year.

It was the centrepiece of an internet broadcast by the Prime Minister designed to reassure voters that the Government is listening to public concerns about the population soaring towards 70million.

But it has now emerged Mr Brown's claims were produced by using two completely different sets of statistics which should not be compared. In fact, analysis suggests he is likely to have underestimated the net level of immigration to the UK last year by more than 35,000.

That would make the total figure for 2009 more than 20,000 higher than in the previous 12 months. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said Mr Brown's podcast had used 'misleading figures'. He added: 'The net immigration figure for the calendar year 2009 could well show an increase, not a fall. So the PM has got his immigration numbers seriously wrong.'

The controversy stems from a detailed passage in yesterday's podcast - which was itself a response to canvassers reporting deep public unhappiness with Government immigration policies.

Mr Brown said: 'Doing the right thing for jobs and for a strong economy - and ensuring fairness for hard working families - is the central theme of this week's Budget.

'But I recognise that among the concerns you must address when you talk of fairness is immigration.

'Some people talk as if net inward migration is rising. In fact, it is falling - down from 237,000 in 2007, to 163,000 in 2008, to provisional figures of 147,000 last year.'

The first two statistics - for 2007 and 2008 - are complete totals from the Long Term International Migration study, approved by the Office for National Statistics. But the 2009 figure - used to give the impression of a steep fall in arrivals - is only a partial figure, compiled from the different International Passenger Survey.

Not only is it provisional, it does not include asylum seekers, long-term arrivals from Ireland and people who travel to Britain as visitors then decide to stay.

On average, based on previous years, the ONS estimates 38,000 will be added to the figure quoted for 2009 by Mr Brown - which would give a final total of 185,000 - up by more than 10 per cent.

That would mean that - even in recession - migration to the UK once again began to rise.

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: 'After 13 years of an open door immigration policy Gordon Brown now admits we need controls.

'His Government has not offered any serious controls, so Britain will have to wait for a Conservative government to introduce an annual limit on work permits, effective controls on student visa abuse, restrictions on those coming here to get married, and a Border Police Force.'

Article

*****

This is not misleading the public, this is blatantly lying to them over one of their main concerns. In days gone by he would have had to resign for deceit such as this.

He won't of course, as that would take moral courage, but it does show you how low we have sunk as a country that this despicable man and his even more despicable government are not only tolerated, but are apparently endorsed by so many of the drones that dwell amongst us.

That this ruinous government is still in the running in regards the General Election boggles the mind, and makes one ask oneself have we become a nation of unthinking unprincipled fools?

A Sign of Empire Pathology

More US military personnel have taken their OWN lives than have died in action

by Finian Cunningham

Here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide - more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).

Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average.

A growing number of these victims have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. What these figures should tell us is that there is something fundamentally deranged about Washington's "war on terror" - which is probably why western news media prefer to ignore the issue. How damning is it about such military campaigns that the number of US soldiers who take their own lives outnumber those killed by enemy combatants.

What is even more disturbing is that the official figures only count victims of suicide among serving personnel. Not included are the many more veterans - officially classed a civilians - who take their own lives.

Most likely, these deaths are reported in some small-town newspaper in "a brief" news item with no context or background as to what drove these individuals to take their own lives. It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over 6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year.

Many of these men have come home to a country they have fought for only to find no jobs, their homes repossessed by banks that have enjoyed trillion-dollar bailouts and broken relationships.

Meanwhile, President Obama - the erstwhile peace candidate - has taken on the role of Commander in Chief with gusto, telling his countrymen and women that they are fighting a "just war" to "defend American lives". Only a year ago, he was campaigning for the presidency on a ticket to end such wars. Now, more than his predecessor, George W Bush, Obama is committing to wars without end. How soul-destroying is that for a grunt holed up in a bunker, with his young family back home probably telling him that they have just signed up for food stamps? In their guts, these US soldiers must know - as many other ordinary people around the world do - that these wars are nothing but a desperate, pathological bid by a dying power to salvage its crumbling empire - an empire that enriches a tiny elite and impoverishes the majority. Is it any wonder that many of them simply lose the will to live?

Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Article

Image of Jesus 'appears in a frying pan'

Toby Elles, 22, made the discovery after burning the food when he fell asleep while cooking.

After lifting off the scorched bacon Mr Elles, from Salford, Lancs, could not believe his eyes when the Christlike image stared back at him.

The face is complete with eyes, nose, a beard and is framed by long flowing hair.

Mr Elles, a cashier for Halifax Bank, said: "I fell asleep cooking some bacon and it had burned this face onto the pan, it's some kind of miracle.

"If it wasn't for the smoke of the bacon burning this onto the pan it could have been a very bad situation, perhaps someone's looking over me.

"My housemates and I had a few beers earlier in the evening I thought I would snack before going to bed and as it was cooking I decided to take a rest on the couch.

"When I woke up about an hour later the room was full of smoke.

"Luckily we have an electric hob so I just turned off the heat, but then I lifted up the bacon and there was JC looking back at me.

"I'm not going to scrub it clean though, just in case I get struck by lightning, it's going to take pride of place on a wall instead.

"It's become quite a talking point for people who come round to the house and I have even thought I might get a glass cabinet to put it in.

"I'm going to keep it for the rest of my life, perhaps it can watch over me."

Article

*****

Just as well it didn't turn out to be a likeness of the prophet Mohammed instead of Jesus, it being formed by bacon fat and all.

He could well have found himself being struck over the head with that pan.

Wounded soldier rages at betrayal of heroes

When Tony Blair took his seat at the Chilcot inquiry insisting he had no regrets about taking Britain to war, Sergeant Gavin Harvey was having his downstairs loo refurbished.

He didn’t watch the former Prime Minister speak.

‘I don’t get involved in policy,’ he says. ‘If they’ve made wrong decisions, so be it. I’ve just done the job I’ve been told to do to the best of my ability.’

Gavin, who serves with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, survived a tour of duty in Iraq without injury. Not so in Afghanistan.

He was commanding a convoy in Helmand Province when his truck hit a roadside bomb, killing his driver, Craftsman Anthony Lombardi.

Gavin, 28, lost both legs, part of his pelvis and ruptured many of his internal organs.

He is the most severely wounded soldier to return from Afghanistan and survive. It’s a miracle he’s here talking to me at all.

He says he’s lucky, but it’s a rough sort of luck.

When we meet in the three-bedroom house Gavin shares with his wife Kerry, 25, and two young daughters, Ella, four, and one-year-old Millie, the workmen are here too, turning the downstairs bathroom into a disabled toilet.

Ella’s just celebrated her fourth birthday and it’s her party tomorrow, but there’s woefully little Gavin can do to help.

Needless to say, there won’t be any more children.

‘There are complications from my injuries that I don’t want to go into,’ he says. ‘But let’s say we’ve had two now and that’s it. I’m lucky. I’m a family man. I love my kids to bits. Even if I was a vegetable but could still see my children, I’d be happy.

‘People turn round and say “you’re a hero”, but the real heroes are the people who are not here today.

'These are the guys who have paid the ultimate price. It’s awful, just awful.’

Gavin is sobbing now. Before the explosion, he wasn’t just a hands-on father, but a keen sportsman, a footballer, a basketball coach and a cross-country runner.

Today, little Millie has to toddle to her father’s wheelchair and reach up towards him for a cuddle.

Gavin says he still hasn’t come to terms with his horrendous injuries and emotionally he’s a mess. There’s anger, frustration, tears and a darkness around his eyes that speaks volumes about the mental hell that is his.

‘I was so bad that I died I don’t know how many times,’ he says. ‘I’m a different man now. I’m absolutely not afraid to take anything on now. I’m not even afraid to die.

‘I was crying the other night because I said to Kerry: “I’m not afraid to die.” It’s the most awful feeling not to be afraid of death. It’s incomprehensible. I’m not completely right upstairs because of that. I’m still trying to put my head back together at the moment. I’ve got these things going my head that I can’t cope with - like hearing people laughing and the noise of these toys.’

Ella has turned on one of her brightly-coloured plastic toys which is burbling out kiddie music.

‘Stupid things,’ he snaps. ‘Why do people buy those toys?’

Gavin is, by nature, a hugely private man, but has agreed to this interview to raise awareness for the Army Benevolent Fund, which tomorrow rebrands itself as ABF, The Soldiers’ Charity.

To date, 179 British soldiers have died in Iraq and 251 in Afghanistan, but the numbers of those injured stands many times higher.

Indeed, as Gavin says, when he was receiving treatment at the Army’s rehabilitation centre, Headley Court, near Leatherhead in Surrey: ‘You couldn’t move in the dining room for all the wheelchairs.’

Sadly though, the support given to men like Gavin and their families is woefully lacking.

The ABF has received a 30 per cent increase in requests for assistance from soldiers in the past year and needs to double its income to £14million - but the care given to those injured fighting for their country remains appallingly unjoined up.

Although Gavin and his family have been supported by his Battalion and the ABF, Kerry was not approached until four-and-a-half months after her husband suffered his life-threatening injuries. Furthermore, the Government review for compensation offered to wounded soldiers remains ongoing.

Under the MoD’s existing scheme, lump sum payments for the most serious injuries are capped at £570,000. The scheme is being reviewed by Admiral Lord Boyce, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, following appeals from numerous servicemen and women.

‘It’s disgusting,’ says Gavin. ‘I’m not going to put in a claim while they’re still squabbling over it. If people want to fight over compensation for a soldier who’s been wounded for being courageous for his country, let them do it.

‘They’ll compensate some idiot who’s spilled coffee over themselves or has repetitive strain injury, but they can’t compensate a soldier who’s lost his legs in Afghanistan. What sort of place are we living in?

‘In the American system, a wounded soldier gets posted to a rehabilitation unit with his family and they don’t even touch you for a year. They just leave you with your family,’ says Gavin.

But here, Headley Court doesn’t provide a service for the family. Our support service - Relate - looks after families but the problem is these organisations need to knit together.

‘When you get injured, it’s like a ripple in a pond. It affects everyone around you - your friends, your family. There needs to be a system whereby the family receives support.’

Gavin has checked himself out of Headley Court. He couldn’t bear to be apart from Kerry and the children.

‘I’m only as strong as my family are. It’s the biggest thing that’s pulled me through. My family is my rock,’ he says.

‘If that’s taken away from me, there’s nothing worth living for. Without them, I’m just an average man.’

But Gavin is not an average man. An inspirational leader, according to his commanding officer, he is a man of huge courage and extraordinary grit.

He’d been serving with the British Army for 11 years when he took command of the convoy on August 4 in Helmand to re-supply the Mercian Regiment with water and ammunitions.

The convoy was taking part in Operation Panther’s Claw, the British-led military operation in southern Afghanistan to secure various canal and river crossings and establish a lasting International Security Assistance Force presence in one of the main Taliban strongholds, ahead of the 2009 Afghan presidential election.

‘Basically, I struck an IED (improvised explosive device) that killed Anthony and left me like this,’ he says, gesturing to the place where his legs used to be.

Craftsman Anthony Lombardi’s death still troubles him deeply. He was a friend and had a son, Harvey, who is not yet one year old. Gavin was the sergeant in command of the convoy.

Unlike the politicians who have sought to cover their backs at the Chilcot inquiry, he assumes full responsibility and, yes, has regrets over that day.

‘I was devastated when I was told he was dead,’ he says. ‘It’s awful when you get close to someone and hear about their families if they’ve got kids - then they’re just gone. I did this to me.’

He doesn’t have to voice the fact that he clearly blames himself for Anthony’s death, too.

‘The thing is IEDs are so frequent in Panther’s Claw. It’s like playing Minesweeper without the numbers.

You’ve got no idea where they are. The explosion must have been quick. The blast knocked me out. I remember waking up and I had three teeth missing. I had blood in my mouth and thought I had internal injuries. I spat it out and tried to breath again.

‘There was blood everywhere. I thought: “Oh s***, not me.” The blast had blown ammunition and food all over the place. I was lying on top of it in the dirt. I tried to get up and that’s when I realised my legs had been blown to bits. There were bones and tendons showing.

‘I couldn’t feel them. It was all numb. I couldn’t feel any pain. It felt tight. Everything felt really tight, really strange.

‘I remember looking at myself. My internal organs had come out. They were everywhere. I could see them. I had a ruptured bladder, a ruptured stomach. It was pretty much as bad as you can get — pretty much like, “I’m dead.”

‘I made peace with myself. I talked to myself in my head. The only thing I could think about was: “How’s Kerry going to cope without me being there?”

‘I’ve always been a central figure in the family, the person people draw strength from. I just thought: “How are the kids going to grow up without a dad?” My life didn’t flash before my eyes - nothing like the Hollywood stuff. All I could think about was the things that were most important to me at the time - Kerry and the kids.’

He’s in tears now. ‘I’ve only ever told you this. I haven’t even told the commanding officer because I don’t like talking about it,’ he says. ‘It’s an awful, awful sensation - an awful thing to feel. I knew I was going to die.

'Nobody will ever know how I feel,’ Gavin is raging.

‘They will never feel what I feel because they haven’t done it. I’m willing to give up this [he nods to his youngest daughter on the sofa] because I love my country, then I come back to my country and see f****** yobs in the street, I see things going wrong, I see people being awful to other people and I think: “Is that what I’ve been protecting?” Sometimes it’s disgusting.’

Kerry, a gentle, stoic woman with tired eyes, stands to comfort Gavin. He composes himself and continues: ‘I remember one of the blokes opening the door to the truck, saying: “Oh f***.” I knew then that I was in a world of hurt — a dark horrible place
where my life was in the balance. I didn’t even know my pelvis had been completely smashed up then.

‘I told them to go away - to go and save Anthony and my operator. I knew I was dead. It was horrible because I wanted to be saved, but I was convinced I wouldn’t make it.’

The man Gavin used to be didn’t survive that day. The tortured individual I see before me now did. A medic, who has since been applauded for his fast-thinking, stemmed the bleeding with blood-clotting powder and bandages.

‘He saved my life. I owe it to him,’ says Gavin.

But his life continued to hang in the balance for several weeks. Before flying him to Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital, medical staff at Camp Bastion put 50 units of blood in him to keep him alive and Gavin was put into an induced coma for three weeks.

Meanwhile, Kerry learned that her husband had been terribly injured.

‘There was the knock on the door and the immediate shock,’ she says. ‘I didn’t have a clue how serious it was. I knew he’d lost his legs but had no idea of the condition

he was in until I walked into critical care at Selly Oak. That not knowing was the hardest thing.’

Gavin remembers dreadful nightmares, ‘stuff going through your head, mumbo-jumbo stuff’, dreadful stuff he doesn’t want to share.

‘Flipping hell,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I didn’t know if I was dreaming or it was happening. My head was a mess.’

It wasn’t until three weeks after he regained consciousness that he began to understand it all.

‘I just laughed when they told me in detail what was wrong with me,’ he says. ‘I just switched off, saying: “Yeah, whatever.” Every day is a new day for me. It’s horrendous. It’ll take me the rest of my life to cope with this now.

‘My mobility’s been taken away. My life’s not over, but there’s hundreds of things I can’t do - I can’t run and I used to love running. Frustrated is probably the best word. It’s difficult to do things for the kids and that frustrates me - that I can’t even look after my own children.’

And Kerry? How does she cope?

‘You do because you love each other and you’ve got a family,’ she says quietly. ‘They say you don’t know how much you can cope with until you’re forced to cope.’

Gavin, who wants only to return to his Battalion, has told the unvarnished truth to help raise funds for a support system for soldiers like himself and their families. The Army, he says, has taught him ‘respect, selfless commitment and courage’.

‘Every day I’ve got is a day I shouldn’t have had,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to pay back all the people who have helped me.’

It’s a selfless commitment that should humble each and every one of us.

Article

To make a donation, visit www.soldierscharity.org

'Nobody will ever know how I feel,’ Gavin is raging.

‘They will never feel what I feel because they haven’t done it. I’m willing to give up this [he nods to his youngest daughter on the sofa] because I love my country, then I come back to my country and see f****** yobs in the street, I see things going wrong, I see people being awful to other people and I think: “Is that what I’ve been protecting?” Sometimes it’s disgusting.’

I would like anyone stumbling upon this blog to read this article, as you may just get a small glimpse of the price that our soldiers are paying, and the little thanks that they receive on their return.