Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign

1 On 23 February, thanks to a fortunate delay in obtaining a helicopter flight from Camp Bastion to Lashkar Gah, I was able to join Lt Gen Jonathon Riley (Deputy Commanding General, ISAF) and several hundred other British and allied troops at the Service of Repatriation for Corporal Damian Stephen Lawrence of the 2nd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment (The Green Howards). As this was the first British ‘ramp ceremony’ I had attended (I had once been to a much more elaborate Canadian ceremony at Kandahar), I cannot resist recording what I saw and heard, and felt.

2 Corporal Lawrence had died on 17 February, on operations with the Afghan National Army as part of an Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team. This difficult and dangerous work, performed with quiet distinction by the 2nd Yorks, is the keystone of our strategy in Afghanistan.

3 We gathered an hour before sunset. The troops – scores of Corporal Lawrence’s regimental comrades, men and women of all ranks and regiments of the British Army, 40 Commando Royal Marines, the Royal Navy, the Royal Guards Hussars of the Danish Army, Estonians and Americans, were formed into a great three-sided square, facing west towards the new runway at Bastion, and the empty spaces stretching to Iran beyond.

4 In the centre of the square stood the Padre, wearing battledress beneath his bands, and the ramrod column of the Regimental Sergeant Major, Mr Hind. Before us the sun was setting across the great southern desert, casting long shadows, illuminating the whole ceremony in shades of dusty gold. There was silence. The Chinooks and Sea Kings, Apaches and Lynxes, which usually buzz in and out of Bastion every few minutes from the helicopter lines behind us, had ceased flying, out of respect for the fallen.

5 And then, out of the sky to the north, appeared a single Hercules of the Royal Air Force. With a great roar it landed, perfectly, on the runway in front of us, and taxied out of sight, and sound.

6 Corporal Lawrence’s Commanding Officer, Lt Col Simon Downey, marched stiffly out into the middle of the parade ground. The RSM called us to attention. A bearer party, found by the Green Howards, brought Corporal Lawrence’s coffin, bound in the Union flag, out on to the centre of the square.

7 The service began, in the best traditions of lapidary Army Anglicanism. Plenty of dignity, not too much religion. The words of comfort for those who mourn from St Matthew; a few prayers, with responses; St John 14 (‘In my Father’s house there are many rooms’); Binyon’s lines (‘At the going down of the sun, And in the morning, We will remember them’), barked out, improbably, by the RSM; a lone bugler played Last Post, and Reveille; a well-judged eulogy, full of humanity and humour, by Colonel Downey; a deeply moving message of maternal pride, and affection for the regiment, from Corporal Lawrence’s Mum, on the North Yorkshire coast; and finally the Collect of the Yorkshire Regiment (‘Grant to the Yorkshire Regiment in its battalions and ranks, the strength that fears … no desperate endeavours and no foe bodily and spiritual; but advances in thy righteousness through all the rough places under the Captain of our salvation …’). The Lord’s Prayer, said together, the Blessing, and the Service itself was over.