‘How was your summer?’ ‘Great, we went to France, Spain, Italy, Thailand…’. Kids well, work OK, sun shining, loving the Olympics and Paralympics…. Life’s good. Do we all know how lucky we are? I often think the greatest lesson I have learned from filming in India, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Angola and so on is just how extraordinarily fortunate I am – and how most of you too. We don’t spend hours collecting water from streams; we don’t eat a meagre diet; we can get on planes; we can go on holiday and laze on a beach; our kids don’t die of diarrhoea. Why am I a bit reflective today? I get the daily news reports out of Afghanistan – and it’s hard to bear. A war – and it is a war – that barely gets a mention in the US elections (how must you feel if you are the family of a US service-person in Afghanistan??). A war that, daily, kills and maims. The following is one random report that, like many others, touched and saddened me. I was in New Zealand earlier this year screening my Haydn and my Mir films. Such a beautiful country – and so far from Afghanistan. How did those Kiwi soldiers feel flying away from their homeland on a great, scary adventure? Excited? Reluctant? Scared? I’m sure, once they got there, they soon fell in love with the landscape and the people. And there they died.
The three New Zealand soldiers killed in Afghanistan last Sunday have been welcomed home in a ramp ceremony, with a memorial service to follow at Burnham.
An all-female group of army pallbearers carried the body of Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker off an air force Hercules, in a poignant ramp ceremony at Christchurch airport. Lance Cpl Baker, 26, an army medic from Christchurch, was the first female New Zealand soldier killed in a combat zone since the Vietnam War when a roadside bomb killed her, Corporal Luke Tamatea, 31, and Private Richard Harris, 21, last Sunday in Afghanistan. A guard of honour greeted the Hercules carrying their bodies as it touched down on Thursday afternoon. Soldiers, chaplains and close family boarded the plane to pay their respects privately. As the caskets were carried off to hearses soldiers performed a haka. The three soldiers killed on Sunday were part of the 140-strong New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan province. Two weeks earlier two other PRT members Lance Corporals Rory Malone and Pralli Durrer, both 26, were killed in a firefight in the same northeast area of the province. Chief of Army Major General Tim Keating said he was privileged to stand beside the families of Cpl Tamatea, Lance Cpl Baker and Pte Harris, and "honour their sacrifice with the dignity and respect they deserve". "I pay tribute to their selfless courage and sacrifice that they have made in the name of world peace," Maj Gen Keating said. Allied commanders, including US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Martin E Dempsey and commander of the International Security Assistance Force General John R Allen, were among those to farewell the three New Zealanders this week at a ramp ceremony at Bagram air base.
Final arrangements are being made for a memorial service expected to be on Saturday at Burnham Military Camp. The families are expected to hold private funeral services later next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment