I went to church today.
As most of you know, I am not a particularly religious
person. My children were christened in
a church, I got married in a church, I drive past one when I take the kids to
nursery, but that's about it really. I am not going to get into a whole debate
about God and stuff, that's not the point of this email. I'll come to the point in a minute.
The padre here, a rather portly, balding RAF chap wanders
around camp, mostly the DFACs (food halls, remember), trying to jolly up the
troops in that well-meaning but slightly annoying "I'm not really one of
you"-way that padres have. He also
sends emails exhorting us to come to church to headquarters, who post them up
on buildings. The emails are, again,
slightly jolly - gentle ribs at himself and the lack of numbers at his
services. In a camp where numbers can fluctuate up to 25,000 (definitely an
email for the future) It's all a bit sad.
Everyday, on my way to HQ I walk past a flagpole
outside the entrance. On it is an
American flag. Every time the United
States lose a soldier here (not anywhere in Afghanistan , just here) they lower
the flag to half mast. I walk past the
flag pole and see a flag at half mast.
Set against a beautiful back drop of mountains and a mass of cameras and
detectors watching out for INS attacks and rocket attempts, it's quite
poignant. Every time I see the flag at
half mast I walk into the briefing room and offer my apologies to my US partner, who accepts them a little awkwardly, maybe a little guiltily
and we move on. This keeps
happening. Almost every day. I have been here 24 days and I have offered
my condolences a lot. So much so that
it's becoming a little trite. I have now
stopped doing it. It was becoming a
constant reminder to him that they are losing a lot of people, and it was
becoming too much of a ritual for me.
It's all a bit sad.
You can probably see where this is going. I saw one of the emails posted up and
strangely, very strangely, I had nothing on at 1700 on Sunday. I had a weird urge to go along. Whether to keep the padre happy, show a bit
of British solidarity, just have a quiet hour I dont know. But at 1703 I was stood in a large wooden
hut, with perhaps 13 other people (mostly Americans, the remainder, senior RAF
officers). The "stained glass"
windows were sheets of plastic that have had coloured paint swabbed across them
and the music was coming from a small stereo, but it was quiet and it was
calm. It was nice. Just for an hour. We did communion and the jolly padre pointed
out it's the only legal source of alcohol on camp. Dutiful chuckles. I self-consciously stood and mumbled for the
hymns, looked at my watch a lot and wondered why I was there. At 1755 I shook hands with the padre who
desperately looked like he wanted to talk to me and I went for dinner.
As I walked back, the flag was at half-mast.
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