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ABANDONED HEROES FIGHTING AND DYING ON £2 AN HOUR–IRAQ –
* ABANDONED HEROES HOW I
SEE IT by Robert Hardman * Daily Mail Thursday, August 31, 2006. JUST STANDING UP causes Dave Corrigan MUCH PAIN. Injured in Three years on, his leg is getting worse. And the
worse part of it? Officialdom doesn’t want to know. Like numerous ex-soldiers, his only ally these days is
a charity, which has been quietly tending the unsung casualties of every Army
deployment since World War II. But it
has never faced a crisis like this. The problem is a simple one: our generosity appears to
be drying up. Much as we salute the heroism of our forces when the
bands strike up on the big anniversaries, we have become increasingly reluctant
to help our service charities since the invasion of ‘I am afraid that the sums speak for themselves,’ says
Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, controller of the Army Benevolent Fund
(ABF) ‘if a cause captures the public’s imagination, the
money follows. After the ‘After the first Gulf War, which lasted 100 hours, the
British people donated £3.5 million. More than three years after the [illegal]
invasion of Some will return to active duty or busy lives
elsewhere. Many, though, will have
lasting problems. When these soldiers and their families need those things that
make a real difference – the new wheelchair, the new plastic limb, the therapy
sessions, the stair lift, the educational grant to help the difficult teenager
whose Dad is never coming home – they won’t get them from the Government. They will turn to organisations like the ARMY BENEVOLENT FUND. The Fund needs to raise £5 million a year to cope with
existing demands. It is about to receive
many more calls on its resources from those affected not just by Iraq but also
events in Afghanistan (with the latest death –bringing the total to 14 and no doubt many casualties to be cared
for). But if we are not prepared to top up the pot, then that £5,000,000 is
going to have to be spread far wider. Hence the urgent need for funding events such as next
month’s Music On Fire!, a spectacular concert of music and several tons of fireworks
(sponsored by the Daily Mail), which
will explode above September 23,23 and 24th. Certainly, without charities like the ABF, life would
be very much worse for Dave Corrigan, 46, a married father-of-one. A former lance Corporal in the Parachute
Regiment, he became an ambulance driver in civilian life but remained a devoted
member of the Paras’ Territorial Army wing. In 2003, the part-time soldier was ordered to war with
16 Air Assault Brigade as an ambulance field commander. ‘I was very proud to go out to In March 2003, he damaged his knee falling out of a
speeding ambulance in a nasty battle near Adalya. Medics diagnosed a serious trauma to the knee
and ordered him back, the But on arrival at RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire he was
told to see a GP and sent on his way in the middle of the night without so much
as a travel warrant. He hitched a lift all the way back to Eventually, he received two botched operations in a
military hospital before being medically discharged in 2004. The Army had washed its hands of Corporal
Corrigan, even though he was anything but mended. The pain in his leg was so severe he feared for his
job as an ambulance driver. He had no joy with his local MP – a certain
Tony Blair – but his case was raised in the Commons by a Tory. Eventually, a
junior Defence Minister apologised for the way he had been treated. But, by
now, he could barely walk. With a six-month wait for an operation, Mr Corrigan
had no alternative but to go private – except that his savings were not enough
to cover the £4,000 cost of the operation.
In desperation, he turned to the ABF, who investigated his case and
quickly agreed to foot the bill. ‘They were fantastic – both with their advice and
their funding,’ he says. When you are this low, it means a lot to have an
organisation like the ABF with you. Darren Swift, 40, is equally indebted. In 1991, an IRA
bomb in ‘The regiment were great, but I needed a new
direction,’ he says. He met Al Hodgson,
another ex-soldier who had also last his legs to terrorists, and the pair
wanted to prove themselves with a daring canoe expedition down a
treacherous With renewed confidence the two men took up skydiving
and ended up as national champions. Mr Swift’s other achievements include
wheeling himself across Married with a young daughter, he is irrepressible. We
meet in a wind tunnel, of all places. It is called Airfix, a gravity-defying
tube in This remarkable man is eternally grateful to the ABF,
as is David Loftus. ‘They have seen it all before’ says the chaplain of the
Royal Military School of Music as he speeds about its Twickenham HQ in his
electric wheelchair. His cheerful
enthusiasm makes ‘the padre’ one of the most popular figures round here but he
wasn’t always so upbeat. Back in 1980, Mr Swift was playing the tuba in the
band of the Queen’s Own Hussars, stationed in A quick check-up suggested that he was fine and he resumed
his duties until a few weeks later when his legs gave way. The military hospital checked him out and came back
with a grim diagnosis. ‘They said: “Your knee joints are cooked.” His days in the band were over. He left the
Army for a job with a charity but, by 1996, he could barely walk with a stick. A knee replacement failed and following a deep
infection and a pulmonary embolism, there was no alternative to an amputation
in 2000. ‘That brought a whole new set of problems. It wasn’t a life. It was an
existence. But he didn’t give up He and his wife, Ros, a
secretary, set out to raise the £68,000 needed to alter their Middlesex
home. When a council grant and their
savings fell £10,000 short, he turned to the ABF. ‘We were in a very vulnerable
position but they knew these problems instantly and their advice and funding
sorted everything out.’ As a result, Mr Loftus is now determined to ‘put
something back’, working with a youth band and part-time as chaplain at the
school. ‘The Army is like a family. You never really leave it and it never
leaves you,’ he says. Like all families, though, it has its breaking point.
Right now, it needs the rest of us. But if we are going to send it off to fight
our wars, charge it with war crimes when we don’t like the results and turn our
backs on it when the injured stagger home, then we should not be surprised if
,one day, there is no one to protect us at all. *
* * Please Help Us To Continue Our Vital
Help –NOW! Music On Fire! (Music and Fireworks) For Three Days September 22, 23 and 24. For tickets, contact 0870 606 3473 or www.ticketmaster.co.uk Donations to the Army Benevolent Fund, 41 Queen’s Gate, *
* * [There can be no question that we should all do what
we can to alleviate the pain and suffering of members of our Armed Forces
whatever the foreign policy of the Government. Many people rightly are very angry to put it mildly
about the Government’s willingness to take our country to war in circumstances
where the legality of that war is questioned particularly as the Attorney-General
at the time on first finding the war unlawful later changes his opinion to fit
the Government’s intentions. We believe there is a case for the Prerogative (‘such powers as are exercisable by the
Executive Government without express authority from Parliament’) of the Prime
Minister in declaring war should in future be a matter for a Select Committee
of the House of Common s chaired by Ambassadors’ and others of integrity in the Intelligence Services and Security
Services. We can no longer permit the
question of War and Peace to be left
the sole prerogative of an individual with power to override all opinion. With regard to the Care of our Armed Forces during and in the aftermath of a war there
should be the subject of a Bill passed through Parliament for the sole purpose
of insuring that no member of our Fighting Services should have to rely on CHARITY for the vital necessities which each of us would wish to obtain if we were
in the plight of the individuals as detailed in the above narrative who are no
doubt a few of many thousands of ex-servicemen and women who have NOT received
the Care and Attention from a Government with an annual budget of £9000,000,000,000 -the 4th richest country in
the world. Our soldiers are fighting and dying for £2 an
hour-D.Mail-11/9/06. The truth is that MONEY appears to be the criteria on
which the Ministry of Defence decides many important decisions with regard the LIFE and DEATH of our brave servicemen
and women. Of course there will always be a place for charitable
giving which would provide further help for those in need after their just
needs have been met by the department that sent them to war. Our purpose is to insure that in future it should be a
right for our Armed Forces in the event of injury to expect exemplary treatment
from the MoD and NOT as at present a question of cost. If a Government decides
to go to war and ONLY if our country or our friends abroad are in danger then
the question of COST must be put aside for the duration of the conflict and in
the aftercare how ever long it may be required. WE believe that a new Bill under the title : Care and Treatment of our Armed Forces
Bill -should be introduced in Parliament. As with the Terrance
Rattigan play of the cadet who was falsely accused and punished for cashing
a cheque in ‘The Winslow
Boy’ We expect that a member of the House of Commons should
take it on his or her shoulders to contest with the MoD the injustice to the
members of our Armed Forces by the actions and inactions of that department. As in the ‘Wimslow Boy’ we
and we are sure millions of people are with us for a Fiat A ‘PETITION OF RIGHT’ TO ‘LET
RIGHT BE DONE’ The Attorney-General whose place it is to agree the Fiat will after all be able to redress for
the future the damage done by the illegal war in The Bill
should be named: The Care and
Treatment of our Armed Forces Bill * * * [Font altered –bolding & underlining used
–comments in brackets.] AUGUST/06 ADDED NOV 1-2015
*
*
www.noliberties.com [Latest Addition - June07] * * *
*
Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU
*
VOTE MAY -2007
WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE TO SET YOU FREE
THE UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY
TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE FOR THE TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER BUT SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES. *
ONLY WILL BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE *
* MAY/07
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