11/11/2019

11/11


Another of these days... Where we commemorate our "heroes" and the wounds these wars have left in our lives and our continent, Europe.

While it's dividing further and further, it's hard not to be worried.

But our job is to focus on the good in people, what's been accomplished, what can change the world positively.

That's why, as a journalist, I've been really happy to be asked to work with the Royal British Legion last summer. 

The campaign is out now and resonates especially in this day, 11 November.



Anita's story




Anita talks about how we helped her husband Daughter adapt to civilian life. For more information visit www.rbl.org.uk


For any mother it can be hard when your child decides to sign up and join the military. 

But for Anita it was more difficult when all three of her children signed up to join the Army in their late teens.

Three children in the Army

Anita’s eldest son Mark signed up as an Army reservist, whilst her other son Tom and daughter Becky joined the Army as Regulars.
Becky was just 19 when she signed up in 1999 after she was inspired by her brother’s passing out parade.
“I went to his pass out parade and I felt quite proud. And that's when I got my urge to join,” Becky says.
Which came as a surprise to her mum Anita.
“It was a shock because signing up is quite a big thing,” Anita says. 
“I was proud that she'd found something that she wanted to do. But I was also very anxious because I know what going into the Army can mean.
“I didn’t want to discourage her, I wanted to be there for her. It’s important that whatever all three of my children have done, they know they have my support.
“Particularly with Becky, I’ve really wanted to be supportive because I could see issues that could come for her in the long term, the fact that she’s a woman going into a man’s world, what she’s signing up to is a whole new world that I’ve never been involved with," Anita adds.
“You ask yourself, should I let them go? But at the same time, they’re doing what they want to do and so my support is needed, and my encouragement, and just being there for them.
“But it is difficult because you want to be in contact with them, but you know that wherever they go, it’s not as easy as picking up the phone or popping round to see them, it’s a case of waiting to hear from them, especially in the first few weeks of going into the military. 

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Liam had always wanted to join the Army. 

His great grandfathers both fought in the First World War and his father served in the Paratroopers. He was captivated by their stories when he was a young boy.


Liam's story



Liam talks about how his service impacted his service. For more information visit: www.rbl.org.uk


“It's just something I always wanted to do. It was one of those things the money's good, you meet new people and you get to go around the world.”
“The Army was always the path I wanted to follow and I never envisaged doing anything else from a young age,” he said.
Liam joined the Army in 2002 and served with a cavalry regiment - the Light Dragoons - deciding not to follow his fathers’ footsteps as he “didn't fancy jumping out of aeroplanes.”
He was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and then Afghanistan in 2007.
“I don’t think I appreciated emotionally how it affected everyone at home,” Liam says.
“My dad had been in the army so I assumed my dad would be cool with it, he’d understand because he lived the life, but I’m an only child and he sent his only son off to go and do the job he’d been doing for the last 20 years.
“I don’t think I appreciated how hard it hit my mum until very recently, until I had my son. It’s hard to talk to my mum about it because I know it affected my mum quite hard and I don’t think I ever really appreciated that.”

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Linda's story



Linda talks about how we helped her husband Mike, and their family. For more information visit: www.rbl.org.uk


Life as a military wife

Linda Kiff’s first experience of life in the military was when she married her husband Mike after they met while he was on leave in her hometown of Bournemouth. The couple married in 2006 and have two children.


It can be difficult for people to relate to the struggles faced by military families. 

The months away from loved ones, the worry of those left behind. Unless you’ve been there, it can be hard to fully understand.

"My first encounter of the military was through Mike and being his wife. It was definitely a different experience to what I ever thought it would be,” Linda says. “I suppose I didn't really know what to expect.” 
“I’d never had a military background, I knew nothing. Mike came from a military background with his father being in the services. 
“I had no idea how quick changing it is, how you can have a friend one minute, someone that you would happily talk to for hours and then that persons gone… because they’ve moved to somewhere and you can’t get hold of them.”
Mike’s time in the Army saw him deployed to the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and for a time the family were based in Germany. It was there that reality hit for Linda, that life as a military family abroad would be very different.
“I think it really hit home when we got to Germany. When he went away for months on end with all his training for Afghanistan. He'd been away before, but it was never a month away then back home for a day then another month away," Linda says.
“The community for the children I could never say anything bad about. But I think for women, for the mums and of course some dads left behind, I think it can be tricky because you just don't know what to do.
“You just wait. As much as the day continues, every day you go to bed wondering, am I going to get a message? Am I going to get a phone call? Is someone going to knock on my door?
“There’s a lot of questions going through your head whilst you’re thinking that you just want your loved one home.”

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