The UK has been in Afghanistan since 2001, and the death toll for the British military has suffered 404 losses in this time. Each had a family, each had a different story, and each had a life that was cut short. For every soldier that was killed, three to four more are injured. Some will recover from these injuries, some will not. One thing is for sure, the lives of these young servicemen and woman will never be the same again.
It’s fine for us. We’re sat in our cosy Sixth Form with not a care in the world. We go home at night, see our families, then go to sleep. We wake up the next morning and repeat the whole routine. Now for one minute just imagine having to wake up every morning without your family, 3000 miles away in the middle–east. See how good we’ve got it?
The basic pay for a Private in the British Army is £16,681. The average wage for someone who works in IT is £41,545. The average wage for a Premiership player is £676,000. Who has the hardest job? My point exactly. I’m not proposing we pay Privates in the British Army half a million pounds a year, but I just want you to think of the sacrifices they make on our behalf.
President Obama wants a withdrawal of all fighting troops from Afghanistan for 2014. This was has gone on too long as it is and the British people want to know when our young servicemen and women will be brought home safely. But we could be here for so much longer. The Afghan security forces are infiltrated with Taliban and Taliban sympathisers, who are not yet capable of running their own affairs. NATO and the Allies must continue the hard work necessary to keep the middle-east free of terrorism.
The price we have already paid is high. Just for tonight, go home and think about those hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers involved in the conflict. As the great Prime Minister, Winston Churchill once said: “Never was so much, owed by so many, to so few”.
