BRITAIN’S most battle-hardened Defence Minister in modern history laid a wreath at the weekend on behalf of the 457 British servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan.
Former Royal Marines Colonel, Alistair Carns, 44, who became Minister for Veterans in July, served FIVE tours in the Afghan conflict.
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He spent nearly three years there and won a Military Cross for gallantry in top-secret operations with UK Special Forces.
With 200 other veterans and guests, he attended a service at the National Memorial Arboretum on Saturday to mark ten years since the British forces officially gave up control of Afghanistan.
I make a conscious effort to think of everybody I saw either killed or wounded in Afghanistan.
Alistair Carns, Veterans Minister
In an exclusive interview, he says: “When the Last Post goes, it always gives you a lump in your throat.
“I make a conscious effort to think of everybody I saw either killed or wounded in Afghanistan.
“I picture their faces, I picture the moment and go through them chronologically.”
I ask: “How many go through your head?” And staring into the distance, he replies: “A lot. I still see every face and every moment.”
Does it get any easier with time? “It gets harder,” he says, as if still running the faces of the fallen through his mind.
The service, organised by the Royal British Legion, marked the tenth anniversary of the day the Union Jack was finally lowered at Camp Bastion, which for 13 years became HQ for 150,000 UK troops.
On October 26, 2014, Britain officially handed the sprawling desert city-cum-airbase over to Afghan troops.
‘Military at its best’
Scotsman Alistair, who joined the Royal Marines as a teenage recruit, was a 26-year-old Captain when he was first posted to Helmand Province — and he is still forbidden to talk about many of the classified operations he took part in there.
He says: “I did five tours in two and a half years in total — all deployed in a combat role. I was so lucky so many times.
“Once a bullet went into my backpack, the guy to my left had been killed. I’ve seen guys killed feet away from me.
“I’ve seen people blown up. I’ve had grenades land in front of me and not go off.”
In 2011, Carns, now Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, won the Military Cross for gallantry on special forces operations.
He later worked in Whitehall as a military adviser to three Defence Secretaries.
When he first arrived in Afghanistan, Camp Bastion was tiny.
The father of three recalls: “It was an amazing place. It had only been established for four or five months.
“It was a dust bowl with a dirt strip runway, a couple of helo [helicopter] landing sites, and maybe 30 tents.
“I don’t think it even had a fence. It just had a dugout berm around it.
“I still remember the smell. A rawness of heat and sand and dust, and the smell of the tents and the aviation fuel from constant helicopters and aircraft coming in.
“The wind would come through the camp and whip up little dust storms.”
We saw the very best of Britain in Afghanistan, I genuinely believe that.
Alistair Carns, Veterans Minister
On Remembrance Sunday, November 10, a group of 66 veterans from the new UK Afghanistan Veterans Community will march past the Cenotaph for the first time representing the Brits who served in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021.
Carns says: “Around 150,000 people went through Afghanistan from the start to its finish.
“When you add in relatives, you are talking probably near a million people with close connections in some way.
“We saw the very best of Britain in Afghanistan, I genuinely believe that.
“The people who served, the people who volunteered to serve, those who supported those who served were superb.
“And the nation really rallied behind the armed forces.
“It’s irrelevant of your political views, it’s about supporting the individuals who were serving at the time.
“The Sun led the vanguard for that along with one or two other papers. It was really impressive.
“When you’re in Afghanistan in a dusty tent or a little hole in the ground somewhere and you get a copy of The Sun a couple of weeks old, that’s good.
“They’re championing the great work of the military or you’re reading about bravery taking place that you don’t necessarily hear about from the system.
“You not only provided a service to the nation back home, but you were supporting, both directly and indirectly, the individuals forward.”
By October 2014, Camp Bastion had become a huge city — the largest British military base to be built since World War Two — home to up to 14,000 UK forces at a time.
Talking about when the UK pulled out, Carns says: “How Bastion deconstructed itself was amazing.
“The security operation that went on to make sure it was safe and successful was superb. It was the military at its best.”
Unlike the events three years ago in Kabul when the Taliban defeated the Afghan Government and thousands had to flee in a chaotic airlift.
Those scenes left many of the 150,000 Brits who fought in Afghanistan wondering what the hell it was all for?
The new Minister for Veterans says to them: “I can understand that feeling, but at the same time they need to recognise that they’ve changed the lives of so many people, in a good way.”
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Donate to this year’s Poppy Appeal
THE SUN has joined forces with the Royal British Legion so our readers can donate direct to this year’s Poppy Appeal by scanning the QR code, below.
Money raised during the annual appeal will help the RBL charity to continue its vital work supporting the Armed Forces community, past and present.
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