On a chilly autumn morning in September 2006, I turned up at my new posting at Combermere barracks in the Berkshire town of Windsor.
Having already served three years in the army, I considered myself a fairly well-rounded and established soldier. I thought, while making the short journey along the M4 motorway, that I’d be placed into a troop with a lot of younger, less experienced soldiers and I’d retain some sort of seniority from Knightsbridge, but I was to find quite the opposite.
I’d been dropped to the bottom of the pile. My two years of ceremonial experience in London was to count for nothing. I was what is affectionately termed the ‘crow’ and right at the bottom of the heap in the eyes of the squadron chain of command. It was a tough pill to swallow, being further down the pipeline than lads who’d barely left basic training, and I was very irritated by my new-found unimportant status. The fact was I had no ‘green’ experience.
Before I was of any use to anybody and at level pegging with my fellow soldiers in Windsor, I needed to learn how to drive the armoured vehicles the regiment used on operations in the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq. Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked), or CVRTs, had many variants, the most notable being a Scimitar, which I needed to know how to drive and maintain. The regiment sent me to Bovington in Dorset, the home of the Royal Armoured Corps and School of Driving. After the six-week course in Dorset I was a fully fledged tank driver.
Back at Windsor I fitted into 1 Troop, A Squadron, which was a large body of men totalling about 130. A Squadron had a fleet of CVRTs which we maintained when we weren’t deployed on exercise somewhere in the countryside. I’d spend many days and weeks tinkering away at a vehicle in the middle of the hangar with the boys. There was never a moment when something couldn’t be repaired or replaced; vehicles approaching forty years of age need a lot of time and care.
There were a lot of new faces to get used to and niggling away at the back of my mind throughout my first week was that it was likely we’d all find ourselves fighting a war in the very near future. It was extremely frustrating not knowing exactly where we’d end up being deployed in the year that would follow, but what we all knew was that it would be somewhere east or west of Iran, somewhere very far away and very, very hot.
I was, by then, used to friends coming and going, with the army moving its people around almost constantly. Faulkner and Dean had by then been posted to Windsor too, but were working in different squadrons. I rarely saw them. Josh had remained back in Knightsbridge to train to become a riding instructor like Tim, something he took to extremely well. Nobody followed me to A Squadron and I certainly felt quite alone for the opening weeks of my time there.
I made an early ally in these initial stages of regimental life in Windsor, another lad of about the same age who’d not been in the army as long as me but had spent longer at the regiment and was higher up the pecking order. Matt was a London lad by birth and we clicked well and became good pals. 1 Troop was quite a mix of men. There was Hodges, an entertaining guy originally from Zimbabwe who was never short of a tale; Kirky, a quiet lad from Nottingham who’d also been at Knightsbridge at the same time as me but was a Life Guard; and Smudge, a lance corporal a little older than us. Sometimes I found Smudge a little difficult to get along with but he was very good at his job as a gunner in one of the Scimitars. The final lad I found myself working alongside was Scoffy, who was Cumbrian by birth and very experienced in the regiment as a driver and gunner. Scoffy was a completely different person to me and on the first day I dreaded the prospect of getting on the wrong side of him. He was a tall, stocky guy who knew exactly what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to tell us other troopers what he needed from us. He was the senior trooper and pretty much carried the authority of a corporal of horse.
But I shouldn’t have worried about him. Scoffy was a hard worker and I really admired him. If something needed to be done, Scoffy would set the rest of us to task and, unlike many others, he’d stick around and help until the job was done. He’d been a trooper at the regiment for so long he knew more about the vehicles than some corporals of horse. I learned from working closely with him that the reason he hadn’t shot through the ranks as someone of his calibre should was because he was never afraid to tell people, particularly senior ranks, exactly what he thought – and often a little too bluntly. We became good mates and he took me under his wing. Commanding Scoffy’s Scimitar was a chap called Danny, who was just about the coolest guy I’d ever meet in the entire army. He was an expert Household Cavalryman who, in the early stages of his cavalry career, was a riding instructor in Knightsbridge before crossing over to the operational side and becoming an excellent ‘green’ soldier. I would learn a lot from Danny, and worked closely with both him and Scoffy the following year on operations.
Running 1 Troop was an officer and a corporal of horse. Lieutenant Olver (not ‘Oliver’, as he’d constantly remind people) and a chap called Corporal of Horse Gibson, known as Gibbo if nobody important was around.
Mr Olver was quite a character. A graduate of Bristol, he became a junior officer in the Household Cavalry Regiment by the time he was in his early twenties. He was the polar opposite of everyone else in the troop and had a very proper middle-class accent. The lads in the troop gave him a hard time for being ‘posh’. I quite liked him, although there’d be times over the course of the following year when I’d have to take a deep breath before carrying out his orders. Mr Olver was to command us all throughout whatever was waiting around the corner.
Supporting Mr Olver, Gibbo was a very experienced soldier who very much acted like a father to us boys. Although Olver officially commanded us, it was really Gibbo who we’d all listen to and respect most.
Settling in to this big family of men, once again I found myself talking a lot about my sexuality. Going through the whole coming-out situation again, something I’d get used to, answering the same fairly mundane questions about who I was, I realised that the subject of sexuality was still a very taboo area of military life. Even Mr Olver was fascinated by me and my background and would spend a lot of time chatting with me, intrigued by my apparently different lifestyle.
I was struck, early on, by how different Windsor was to Knightsbridge. The obvious difference was the lack of horses constantly needing care; once we’d finished working on the vehicles, we could just close the hangar doors and knock off. Over the course of those first two or three weeks, I noticed that soldiers were generally happier at the armoured regiment. There were no stories knocking around about troopers trying to hang themselves or throw themselves out of windows. The boys would start work at 8 a.m., as opposed to the 6 a.m. start endured in London, and finish for the weekend on a Friday lunchtime and not be needed again until the Monday morning. The entire lifestyle of a Windsor cavalryman was a million miles away from that of his London cousin.
My general happiness improved considerably, too, because I could head back to North Wales every Friday afternoon and spend time with Thom or my dad. Life would be much better away from London, even with the threat of deployment and conflict. I even got a little excited about the prospect. It’s what we all joined the army for, after all.
A few weeks after I’d arrived and settled into the troop, the squadron received three new officers fresh from their training who were to become troop leaders at the regiment. The week before they were to arrive, we were all called together by the corporal major for an announcement.
About a year before, to the great excitement of everybody in the regiment, Prince Harry had announced he’d chosen to become an officer in the Household Cavalry, choosing my very own cap badge, the Blues and Royals. The news went down with much trepidation both within the regiment and among the many families who count themselves as part of the wider regimental family. I remember how jubilant Mum was when she got the news.
As his training progressed, we’d read in the papers that he was almost ready to join the men of the regiment and take command of a troop somewhere, but none of us really ever considered that he’d actually turn up and do a job. A lot of us thought he’d do his time in Sandhurst then retire back to the palace, occasionally donning a nice uniform for a state occasion. As it turned out, he was actually coming to the regiment, and not just the regiment, but to A Squadron to work with us. There was much excitement, although the boys did a good job of not showing it.
On the following Monday morning at first parade the squadron formed up as normal, with the officers lining up behind us while the roll was called; a fairly shy-looking 22-year-old prince attempted to blend into the crowd. It was very surreal. He was to assume command of 2 Troop and was, as far as we were concerned, to be treated like any other troop leader in the regiment. I hoped the boys would give him a little bit more respect than that.
I’d had a straightforward couple of years on ceremonial duties, always knowing what was on the horizon and when I was on duty. I’d always had the comfort of knowing that I wouldn’t be out in the middle of Salisbury Plain in the pouring rain, running around with a rifle practising manoeuvres or the like. In Windsor, that would certainly change.
The entire regiment was to carry out generic training at locations around the UK for three weeks in the late autumn of 2006. The exercise, called Wessex Warrior, would see A Squadron deployed to the south-eastern corner of Scotland to conduct training before moving to a training area known as Otterburn in Northumbria and then finally moving en masse to Salisbury Plain for the last week of the three-week operation. It would be a very difficult routine to get used to, as I’d only been on exercise for a maximum of five days at the end of basic training.
I was the driver of call sign 1.3, commanded by a chap called Shagger and gunned by Smudge. We were known as the junior call sign, simply because of how junior we were in our relevant roles. I was by far the junior driver of the troop: Smudge hadn’t long qualified as a gunner and Shagger was a junior commander. He had a hell of a lot of operational experience and had even started out on ceremonial duties like me some years before, but this was a fairly new role to him as a vehicle commander. The pressure was piled quite high on his shoulders and I tried to make myself as useful to him as possible, but I’d find soon that I could, on occasion, be quite a hindrance, too.
Apprehensive about the three weeks that lay in front of me, I boarded the coach to Scotland very early that late October morning, hoping that I wouldn’t be an utter failure at being a real soldier; the Brasso tins and Kiwi polish were long gone now.
As exercises go, Wessex Warrior was bloody good fun. In later exercises, I’d find myself mind-bogglingly bored, but this one was pretty full-on from the start. The learning curve was severe and I found myself really concentrating to keep up with the other lads. One thing was clear, though: my time in Knightsbridge had made me more disciplined. If it started raining, I’d put my waterproofs on without a second’s thought; if my vehicle needed more oil, I’d fill it at the earliest chance; and if my rifle needed cleaning or oiling, I’d sort it out. It was the subtle differences between us ‘dual-trained’ Household Cavalrymen and the lads who’d found themselves straight at the armoured regiment after basic training.
During the final week of exercise, known as the ‘test phase’, increasingly we found ourselves operating on our feet in a more infantry-based role, rather than in our vehicles driving to locations and causing havoc with the larger weaponry. We threw flash-bangs, which are imitation grenades, into buildings then cleared them with machine guns; we put in ‘observation posts’ and spied on enemy movement; and, finally, we conducted full-on infantry-style squadron assaults, all on foot! This involved a lot of running and a lot of crawling through swamps and the like.
On the final night we had to conduct an insertion move, a quick walk carrying all our fighting equipment, of about ten miles, carrying everything we needed to then go on and assault a village in a dawn attack. It was pretty gruelling for me but not so much for the others, who’d done similar moves time and time again. This was the most physically demanding thing I’d ever been tasked to do since joining.
In basic training, when you stop and look around during exercise, you see other young trainees all trying hard to become soldiers; when you join the regiment and then go on exercise, you see an array of ages, all with different experiences, going about their business in a professional way. In contrast to basic training, when everyone’s trying to impress the instructors, nobody’s trying to show off. This was a different world. It was the professional field army and it was my first insight to it.
After the assault, and once the two words every soldier dreamed about, ‘end-ex’, were called over the radio, we unloaded our rifles and made our way slowly and tiredly to the muster point to discuss how the attack had gone.
Our troop and Prince Harry’s troop had worked together throughout the night and indeed throughout the three weeks leading up to the final attack. He’d been slumming it in the dirt with the rest of us, tabbing the endless miles to fight through battles in the pouring rain and commanding his men throughout everything just like the other officers. I respected him anyway, but I had a new-found admiration for him after the exercise.
Gibbo, our corporal of horse, was delighted with how we’d all worked, not only during the final assault but for the entire three weeks. He kept saying how he was sure we’d be good enough ‘next year on ops’, signifying his satisfaction in our progress before our departure to war, which was being talked about almost hourly.
‘And you, Ronald… For a poof, you’ve got some fucking aggression!’
Ronald had become my nickname somehow. It is my middle name, of course, but during one of Mr Olver’s intense interrogations he’d discovered it and decided to apply it as my name. It stuck. Everyone now called me Ronald – even Prince Harry.
I didn’t take any offence at all at what Gibbo had said. In fact, I took it completely the opposite way. It was like a dad telling his youngest son that he was proud of him. In the exhaustion of that final day of exercise, hearing those words made me feel accepted.
That night, we weren’t to return to Windsor; instead we had to stay put in the middle of Salisbury Plain. We were all gutted about the extra night of inconvenience and especially frustrated once somebody realised it was Bonfire Night. In the distance we could see the occasional flurry of fireworks and the odd whizz and crack in the air. It didn’t do much for morale.
Prince Harry, probably as frustrated as the rest of us at being made to stay out on exercise for a pointless extra night, decided to do something that would cheer us all right up. Hearing the distant noise of fireworks and feeling the general mood among the lads, he and his close-protection officer drove to the nearby town of Salisbury to buy a stockpile of fireworks.
An hour later they returned and the entire squadron gathered with hot tea and coffee to watch the most exclusive fireworks display in the world: Prince Harry’s personal fireworks party. It was fabulous. If anybody had anything against the prince before that gesture, I’m sure they changed their minds sat in the cold that night in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
The remaining weeks of the year were spent conducting fairly low-level training at the barracks in Windsor, with the occasional day out somewhere, either firing our weapons on a range or practising how to react in NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) situations. Soon we were celebrating the Christmas period, my favourite time of the year.
At the beginning of the final week before Christmas leave, a rumour began to circulate that an announcement was coming about what the regiment would face in 2007. We knew we were going somewhere, but the question was where? Were we off to Iraq? Were we off to Afghanistan? Nobody really knew for sure, and nobody really had a preference. They were both pretty awful places at the time. I was being asked constantly by Mum and Thom what was going on. It was as nerve-racking for them as it was for us.
The day before leave, a Wednesday, the entire regiment gathered in the gym to enjoy a Christmas lunch served by the seniors and officers, as always. We donned our colourful paper crowns from the inside of Christmas crackers, and the RCM, the most senior NCO in the regiment, told us all to be quiet and to sit up while the colonel said a few words.
After telling us to relax, the colonel took his beret off and looked very sombre.
‘In the spring of next year, A Squadron will deploy to Iraq on Operation Telic 10.’ This was the news we’d been waiting for. We were off to the Middle East. Every day of my life since I had joined the army cadets had been in preparation for this very moment. We were getting our marching orders. The feeling was difficult to explain and the half-bottle of wine I’d drunk with dinner didn’t help as I tried to process this historic announcement.
The colonel told us what to expect but made it clear that there was still ‘great uncertainty’ about what would actually happen. He did tell us, however, that we’d be preventing smugglers from getting into Iraq across the Iranian border. B Squadron would be deployed at the same time but operating in a different part of the country – Faulkner would be in Iraq at the same time as me. Training would start once we returned from leave.
We celebrated our Christmas dinner even more vigorously after the announcement and afterwards 1 Troop went out as one large family to drink the news away. Led by Mr Olver and Gibbo, we’d all be heading abroad on operations. Me, Scoffy, Danny, Matt, Smudge, Shagger, Kirky… We were about to become brothers-in-arms and the challenges that lay ahead would test us all as soldiers, as comrades and as human beings.
Christmas was a bit odd that year. It was my first Christmas with Thom and, though I was swept up in the whole romance of being with him, I couldn’t help but think it might be our last.
Mum, by then, had completely got over my sexuality and had become a bit of a gay rights spokeswoman in the local community, especially in the social club where she played darts on a Thursday. If she overheard anybody saying anything remotely homophobic, she’d immediately ask them to explain themselves. I found this quite hilarious. She was also wholly supportive of Thom and me, and treated him like everybody else.
That Christmas, Dad was just settling into his new living environment at a care home that specialised in support for people who had suffered some kind of brain injury, just across the border in Shropshire. It was a huge relief when he moved into his new surroundings and they looked after him brilliantly.
Thom was always quite out of place in the countryside of North Wales. It was obvious to me from the start that he needed so much more out of life than the rural setting of Wrexham could offer. He wasn’t hugely different from me in that respect and over the course of the three weeks I spent with him that Christmas, he told me that he really wanted to leave the town and be nearer to me.
He’d thought through his plans quite thoroughly before letting me know of his wishes, and had looked into work near Windsor. He was entering his last few months as a trainee hairdresser and I worried that he was about to throw away all that training and skill he’d worked hard for in Wales, but it seemed he’d already made up his mind. He wanted to move to Windsor with me.
If I’m honest, I loved the idea. I’d lived in barracks my entire army career – and indeed my whole adult life. I envied those soldiers who were married or living off base with their girlfriends. I hated that I didn’t go anywhere once work was done, just sat around in my room watching DVDs or playing on my Xbox. But I was worried. I was going away, possibly never returning. I worried that he’d need support. I worried he’d get fed up waiting for me. Life was pretty stressful as it was without this new development.
He’d found an airline advertising for new talent to work on long-distance flights around the world. Thom had said in the past that it was his dream job to work for a company like British Airways or Virgin Atlantic. Nobody could stop him from chasing his dreams and sending off his application – so we didn’t. Everyone who knew him encouraged him. He sent the application off just before Christmas Day and began his wait to find out if his future lay in the airline industry.
I enjoyed every minute of that Christmas. I spent the actual day with my mum and Phil, visiting my dad in his care home in the morning, rushing home to visit friends in the village pub and standing up in front of the television to watch the Queen’s Speech. Mum always served dinner at 3.15 p.m. so that the family could all group around the TV and listen to Her Majesty’s message.
Christmas passed in a flash, as did my twentieth birthday, which I spent with Thom and my parents. Enjoying the occasion, and in the slightly intoxicated state I found myself in, I thought again about this being my last Christmas and birthday. I honestly thought it was more than a possibility. Every time I switched on the news or opened a newspaper, there was someone else dead in Iraq. Since learning that I’d certainly be there from May onwards, it was almost an obsession to scour the media trying to find news of another fatality in the Middle East. I would watch on the news as a distraught wife or girlfriend cried over her dead lover’s coffin. I worried that when it happened to me, people would focus on Thom being another man and him being the first gay guy to lose his partner in the war.
Once leave was over, I drove back to Windsor in the car Mum and Phil had helped me buy to save money on expensive trains week in, week out. I went to work the following morning, depressed that leave had passed by in a flash. As expected, the first three months of 2007 were non-stop. The squadron had become very strong and very close as a team. Prince Harry was still very much part of our life. He’d taken a natural approach to commanding men and had taken it upon himself, as had Mr Olver, to learn more about the men he’d be going to war with. The best officers I’ve ever dealt with have always been the ones that have taken a real interest in the men they are commanding. Olver and Harry were both very interpersonal men who placed high importance on knowing just exactly who was serving under them.
Our training, which had included everything from learning to use different kinds of weapons, like AK-47s, and handling large crowds in riot training to understanding basic Arabic (particularly phrases like ‘STOP OR WE’LL OPEN FIRE!’) and learning how to administer battlefield first aid finally came to an end. A Squadron was ready to fly to Kuwait, before crossing the border into Iraq.
Three weeks’ leave was granted to every member of the squadron to say their goodbyes and make whatever arrangements were necessary before leaving the country. The time had nearly come.
Thom had been successful in getting his dream job in the airline industry. Everyone was happy for him. Supported by his parents and me, he moved to Windsor, moving in with a friend of mine before beginning his training with the airline at Gatwick. This meant we weren’t able to spend the entire three weeks together but we still saw each other a lot. I valued our time and it was a struggle to think how long it could be until we were back together.
Leaving Thom for a few days, I returned to North Wales to spend time with my family and say a few goodbyes to some friends. The day I arrived in Wrexham to start these goodbyes, something on the news had caught the attention of my family, and indeed the whole town. A Wrexham man, serving in the Royal Navy, was part of a group of sailors that had been captured by the Iranians while on patrol in so-called international waters off the coast off southern Iraq and Iran. The sailors had been captured and arrested and were being held inside Iran while, understandably, the world’s media made a meal out of the entire situation.
I watched the events unfold in the news quite obsessively. I was off to patrol the Iranian border. The last thing I needed was an escalation of conflict between us and Iran.
Apart from being glued to the news and constantly checking my phone for missed calls from Windsor, I attempted to sort out the one or two pieces of business soldiers find themselves faced with before deploying to hostile places. I sat myself down in a small coffee shop in the town and wrote my goodbye letters that were only to be opened in the event of my death.
Sitting in the tranquillity of the small Welsh town, it was difficult to imagine events that would lead to these letters being opened by my heartbroken mum or my beautiful boyfriend.
I wrote Thom’s first, which brought me to tears. It was very short and sweet. I told him how much he’d changed my life and how much I wished we’d be spending forever together. I then wrote Mum’s, which was equally difficult. I told her that she was the most amazing woman ever and that I loved her very much. Again, sealing the envelope, I felt a great shiver run down my spine at the thought that it would only be opened if I were killed. My brother and sister got a letter between them, detailing how great they’d been to grow up with. Dad had one too, to be read by his carer if the worst occurred. I knew that Dad’s would be the one that would be read again daily, possibly for the rest of his life. The final letter was for my wonderful niece, who I loved dearly. It wasn’t to be opened until she was eighteen, but it was just a small note to wish her all the best as she entered adulthood.
The afternoon’s writing was a traumatic experience, but I felt better for it. I knew that some of my fellow soldiers weren’t bothering to write such letters and I was troubled by the thought of their loved ones not getting a final goodbye. I almost wanted to write letters for them. As my time in North Wales drew to a close, I visited my dad at his care home and spent some hours chatting away with him. I didn’t mind having to repeat everything I told him every five minutes or so, it was just who Dad was now; what I valued was simply the father–son time we were enjoying together.
The night before I was to head back to Windsor, Mum arranged a leaving party for me at the local club, which was attended by just about everyone who knew me in the small village of Gwersyllt. Thom flew home from Gatwick and arrived with his parents just as the party was getting underway, which was a massive relief as at one point I thought he wouldn’t make it.
I hadn’t seen so many of my friends in the same room since leaving school or the army cadets and I was seconds away from tears all through the night, wishing it would never end. Most of my schoolmates and the friends of my parents had never met Thom before, so I was delighted when he was given such a nice reception by everyone.
Both Liza and Paul made speeches telling me how proud everyone was of me and, with tears rolling down their faces, they both wished me all the luck in the world. I couldn’t believe that the event I’d been thinking about since I was just thirteen years old – when I’d enrolled as an army cadet in the building next door to the social club I was now having my goodbye party in – was actually about to happen. I was heading away with the British Army to a conflict far, far away. There were lots of laughs and lots of tears as I said my goodbyes. Thom held my hand throughout.
Thom and I were to drive back to Windsor the following day to enjoy the last few days of leave before my deployment. Instead of staying together after the party, I decided I wanted to spend one last night alone in my old room, in the bed I’d grown up in before becoming a soldier. I wanted to wake up and enjoy a cooked breakfast made by my mum. I also knew it would make her very happy knowing that I wasn’t spending my last night at home in somebody else’s house. It felt proper to spend it with them.
I knew that saying goodbye to Mum and Phil would be one of the hardest things I’d ever have to do. Mum’s MS couldn’t stand too much stress and I feared I was putting her in a position where she’d end up very poorly. I also knew that Liza wouldn’t tell me over the phone or by letter if that was the case. It was a day Mum had been dreading since I came home from cadets as a kid telling her I wanted to be a soldier, and boy, was it hard.
As she squeezed me, tears pouring from her eyes, she told me that I meant the world to her and I was very special. She told me she’d write every week and that she wouldn’t stop thinking about me at all. She promised me she’d phone Thom and make sure he was OK, too. The final thing she did was hand me a small envelope with a letter inside. Handing it to me, she made me promise not to open it until I’d taken off and was surely on my way to Kuwait. The letter was a bit of a surprise but deep down I had kind of expected it. I took the letter, which I would guard with my life, and placed it in my pocket. It was a part of Mum I was taking to Iraq with me. It became sacred the moment she handed it to me.
Thom drove me away, the neighbours from up and down the street waving to us from their driveways as he did, and we began our long journey back to Windsor. We hardly spoke the entire way.
The timings changed almost hourly for our flight out, something we deploying troops would identify as an all too familiar trait of the RAF. We were stood down from work but had to remain within three hours of the barracks, just in case our flight was moved forward – there was no more training to be done and everyone wanted to get as much time with their loved ones as possible.
Thom completed his airline training and I celebrated with him and his new friends at their training base near Gatwick. It was such a contrast of new beginnings for us both. We were both about to start something we’d wanted to do all our lives, the only difference being that I considered my challenge as a possible ending. I was sure Thom would be waiting for me upon my return, but the closer to deployment I got, the more I was thinking about meeting a nasty end. I became so obsessed with the prospect of death that I planned my funeral to meticulous detail: who I wanted there, what I wanted to be read, the music I wanted played. It was a very eerie state to be in and I’d occasionally find myself spontaneously bursting into tears.
After his training, Thom had some time off before carrying out his first flight the following Friday, the very day that I was due to leave the UK. Thom was off to Orlando; I was off to Iraq. The contrast was unreal.
The final few days flew by, like I knew they would. It was a relaxed time spent with Thom at Thorpe Park or in Windsor eating out with our friends. He was thrilled about his first trip with work to Orlando, where he’d be staying for about two days before returning. I was a little jealous about his dream job, but I didn’t really say so. He tried to keep his excitement fairly low-key so as not to upset me too much, but who could blame him?
Prince Harry’s troop was told that they wouldn’t be flying out with the bulk of A Squadron and would remain in the UK for a further two weeks acting as a rear party. Nobody could quite understand why, but the boys who found themselves in 2 Troop were obviously delighted they were getting extended leave. Why on earth couldn’t they just deploy at the same time as us?
Friday 4 May dawned, the day we’d finally be flying off to war, and Thom and I woke to face two very different journeys.
I spent the early morning helping him get ready in his nice new uniform. I helped him throw his last few essentials in his suitcase and checked and double-checked he had his passport and air pass. He looked smart in his three-piece suit that morning. When he was all ready and fully packed, he gave me a big hug and kissed me goodbye. There was no big ceremony like with Mum. He told me he loved me and that he’d miss me, before turning away and leaving me in the hallway. He’d gone.
I dressed myself in desert combats, put on my new boots specially designed for the hot climates of Iraq, finished my corn-flakes and walked the short distance to the barracks. Life for the next six months was on hold.
We drew our rifles out of the armoury, boarded the coach and travelled through the streets of Windsor towards the M4, then away to Brize Norton to board our plane.
I looked at the streets of Windsor as we pulled away, at the majestic setting of the castle overlooking the town below. I imagined the Queen looking out of her window back at us all, sending her best wishes with us as she did. I tried to keep the image of Windsor Castle fresh in my mind as I wondered if I’d ever see it again.
Three hours later, having spoken to Mum and Thom before he’d taken off in his 747 bound for Orlando, I boarded the battleship-grey TriStar aircraft that would take us the many thousands of miles to Kuwait, pausing to touch the ground with my hands one last time before climbing the steps into the plane. Would I ever touch England again?
As the plane took off over Oxfordshire, I looked down at the green fields and hills below and for the first time in my life, I realised just how beautiful England really was.
As the plane flew into the distance, I clutched the letter Mum gave me and braced myself for what was in it. The contents were very private but very special.
Great Britain, our past, our training and our loved ones were behind us. We faced the uncertainty of the most hostile environment in the world, united as soldiers.