A cold night in June, on the
edge of the Antarctic at the onset of winter, that was when I first thought
about death. Having marched across unforgiving terrain in freezing temperatures
for two weeks with 130lb on my back, sleeping in the open, I was focused on
getting the job done. That was all I could think about when the Company Sergeant
Major gathered everyone together before our impending assault on a heavily
defended mountain summit. ‘If you’ve got someone up there,’ he said, pointing
skywards, ‘you might want to have a word because some of us are not going to
see daylight tomorrow.’
It was a sobering thought. I
was just 17, a private fresh out of training, fighting a war 8,000 miles from
home. I’d never even been abroad before. I was too young to buy a beer in the
pub, too young to watch an X-rated movie. Yet here I was, in the Falkland
Islands, a place I didn’t know existed until a few weeks earlier, fighting for
my country. I was apprehensive but not scared. I was a professional soldier. I’d
trained for war. I knew what I’d signed up for. I was prepared to die for my
country. But I wasn’t prepared for what followed. The fighting on that mountain
top was up close and personal, fraught hand-to-hand combat, one-on-one fighting with
knives and bayonets (highly unusual in modern conflicts).
Trying to kill another
human-being with my bare hands wasn’t how I imagined war to be. It was just me
and him. This is what it came down to, a fist fight, modern technology suddenly
redundant. I couldn’t understand the mutterings of my opponent but I understood the burning rage in
his eyes as we wrestled each other to the ground. It was a rage not driven by
hatred and anger but by desperation and the sheer will to survive. As the fight
nears its conclusion, the burning rage turns to compassion. My enemy sees in me
what I gradually came to see in him, not a soldier or the enemy but simply an
ordinary young man. We were fighting each other because we had been told to yet
we suffered the same hardships. We shared the same fears, regrets and the love
for our families thousands of miles away. I wasn’t fighting for my country
anymore – I was fighting for my hopes and dreams, for the people I loved, for
the chance to live my life. When I finally stared death in the face I knew that
I didn’t want to die. It wasn’t that I was scared of dying – I simply wanted to
live.
A little known fact is that 17-year-old British soldiers fought and died in the 1982 Falklands
Conflict. Some joined up at 16, some were signed up at 15. Too young to give
blood yet old enough to spill it; too young to vote for the politicians who
sent them into battle but old enough to die for them. I joined the British Army
in 1981 aged 17 and, like other young soldiers, the casual nature of my own
mortality never occurred to me. Indeed, when Argentine forces landed on the
Falklands and a British task force was assembled, I was more concerned with how
I was going to explain a tattoo I’d had inscribed on my upper arm to my mother
who I knew would go berserk upon seeing it. As for the prospect of war, I was a
full-time professional soldier in one of the best trained armies in the world. Combat,
war – it was all in the job description. But while you can train for combat and
hone your military skills in preparation for war you can never fully prepare for what you are about to go through. You can’t
simulate fear or death. Like many young squaddies, once I had completed basic training I thought
I was invincible. I didn’t think about getting killed because I didn’t think it
would happen. And if it did, so what. I wasn’t scared of dying. It’s only when
you realize it’s not death itself that matters but what you will leave behind. Most
adults grasp that, plenty in their teens would not – unless, of course,
confronted by death. But by then it may be too late.
Britain’s recruitment of soldiers young enough to be in school has been
questioned recently by senior military and church figures. Britain is the only
country in Europe and the only permanent member of the United Nations which
legally enlists minors. A recent report by the charity Forces Watch found that
those who signed up at 16 were more likely to suffer mental health problems
than those recruited as adults. Other research concludes that soldiers who
enlisted at 16 have double the risk of fatality in Afghanistan. It would be
wrong to ignore the benefits and opportunities that a military career offers
young people but can we really continue to ignore the personal costs borne by
recruiting soldiers at such a young age?