On Tuesday morning 23rd May 20011, after returning from a good swim session I decided to watch the recording of an ITV programme on the life of Dr Karen Woo who was executed on 5th August last year with nine others in a remote part of Afghanistan during a medical and social help mission. The programme was sub titled Life and Loss, advisedly, as this was of those gut wrenching experiences which has left me in a mixture of anger, frustration and tears for the rest of day.
By any standards she was a remarkable women brought up with her two brothers in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and who decided at the age of sixteen years that it was time to leave normal schooling, suburban life with her family in 1990 to join a contemporary dance school in London- The Place. After graduation she joined the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and participated in the farewell tour in 1994 and its last ever season at Sadler’s Wells for which the company received the Lawrence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.
In the programme her father said he had been opposed to his teenage daughter going on her own to London but yielded to the counsel of his wife who had warned that to have tried to prevent her was likely to lead to a permanent break in relationships. Thus from an early age Karen showed a determination to follow her heart and her inclinations from which no one could dissuade her. Her parents communicated themselves as an intelligent and loving couple who understood the spirit, the nature and the drive of their daughter and what was to be their and her gift to the rest of us.
This need for adventure and need to feel she was contributing to those around her was again brought out by senior members of the London Dance School and Theatre and the Richard Alston Dance which became the Place in the same year that when she decided to do something more with life there was no persuading her, despite her talent as a dancer.
I can do no better than include the words of some of those who knew as dance student and then as a dancer. Robert Cohan CBE, founding Artistic Director of The Place, said t "The death of anyone as generous and caring as Karen is hard enough to bear, but her uniquely brilliant qualities of intelligence, skill and beauty make her loss even more painful for all those who knew her."
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp OBE, Chief Executive of The Place, writes: "I am sitting here in my office still trying coming to terms with the news and reading the card Karen wrote to me on the day that London Contemporary Dance Theatre gave its final ever performance, at the Marlowe Theatre Canterbury on Saturday 25 June 1994, a performance in which Karen and I both danced as members of LCDT, Karen being one of the youngest and me, one of the eldest. Needless to say Karen writes with such warmth and hope for the future; it says much about the beautiful person she was.
I have always been full of admiration for the way Karen carved out a new career in medicine. It is hard to believe that only a few months ago, she was here at The Place for the LCDS alumni reunion, happily reuniting with former friends and colleagues and talking with such passion and enthusiasm about her work in Afghanistan and the film she was making with another LCDS alumnus, James Barnard. Her deep empathy for the human condition and her extraordinary selfless courage are so evident in the work she was undertaking in Afghanistan and remain as an inspiration to all of us. The sense of loss is tremendous. Our heartfelt condolences extend to Karen’s family, her fiancé and to all those who knew and loved her."
Richard Alston, Artistic Director of The Place, writes: "I have just returned from France where I was visiting Robert Cohan, the Founding Artistic Director of the Place. Janet Eager, ‘Mop’ to the countless dancers she looked after (including Karen), was also there.
We were all three of us so deeply upset to hear of Karen’s shocking death and Bob, Mop and I wanted to add our voices to the great wave of strong feeling there is about this brave young woman.
Seventeen years ago, I had the great pleasure of choreographing for Karen and I remember so well that as a young dancer she already had something special. Karen was still a student at the Place when I made a dance to Britten’s setting of poems by Rimbaud. One poem was entitled ‘Being Beauteous’ - inevitably I chose Karen for that part, and I still think of her whenever we revive that piece, as indeed we did earlier this Summer.
As a performer she not only danced articulately and musically, she had a natural special presence, what we often call charisma. Karen had charisma by the bucketful - she shone on stage, she glowed, and audience members always asked who she was - “the beautiful girl, the one with the smile”. Given a step, she made it totally, touchingly, her own. Watching videos now of the young Karen, one can see that her dancing is light, energetic and clear, and again and again that inner warmth of hers bursts into a huge unsuppressible smile.
Dear Karen, we remember you and your remarkable life-embracing spirit with immense fondness; no brute with a mindless gun can take that away from us, no they truly cannot. We wish you peace."
Among the gifts she left was her filmed interviews and filing and her Blog writing and in the ITV programme she admits it was quite something to give up something she was good at to go off and try and become a doctor having left school with A levels.
According to The Life of Karen Woo as part of the Karen Woo Foundation Internet site her desire to explore the world led her to undertake travels to Trinidad and Tobago, Australia and Papua New Guinea as part of her training as a doctor which she commenced at the age of 24, She then took a Masters degree in Surgical Education at Imperial College London. Having made the visit to Papua New Guinea she returned to organise the provision of medical supplies
Another perspective is provide by Ray King the Chief Executive of Bupa which Karen joined in 2008 as an associate director and from where she made a visit to Afghanistan that same year and immediately found what she had needed, a cause to command all her attention in which she felt she was making a valuable contribution. Before the year with the organisation had ended she had commenced to collect medical supplies from UK health organisations to send out to Kabul.
Karen was one of a kind. Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen out group Medical Director, who worked closely with Karen remembers her how infectious enthusiasm impressed everyone she met, Andrew said of her, “ She loved teaching and engagement at the front end of clinical medicine and I know she loved her work in Afghanistan. I admired her and I was very proud of her when she took up that role. Her death at such a young age takes from us a lovely woman who has so much more to give.
A personal perspective is provided by Camilla Schickova. She begins her interview article which tool place just the day before she returned to Afghanistan
“Karen was intimidating and inspiring in equal measure. Those who met her have shared feelings of awe from having been in her presence. Some had even given up jobs that were making them unhappy to finally pursue careers that now fulfil them. As such, Karen was a constant reminder that happiness could only be reached if you make the most of who you are. People would also always comment on how stunning she was. Intelligence and looks are a combination all too often assumed to be nauseating. But with Karen I found out quickly that this would never grow tiring. I learnt from a close mutual friend that Karen’s beauty was in fact bridled alongside a strong, brave and determined mind passionate about life and work, and never failing to captivate friends and dazzle strangers with an unbeatable energy and contagious enthusiasm within everything she did. Altogether Karen was truly, inside and out, a rare gem in a still hostile world.”
So why was she executed with the others? Nothing has been established thus emphasising the limitations of the Western might in this arid desert country ruled by monster warlords with whom we do dirty business and unscrupulous politicians stealing billions of Western aid into accounts and properties in other parts of the world recognising that the Taliban the warlords will gain control and boot them out once the allies tire of the constant shedding of blood. We will need to maintain a substantial military presence to able to cross easily into Pakistan to gain control of their musical and weapons of mass destruction should the Muslim fundamentalist, drug barons and self interested politicians the ascendancy. More of the rant in a moment, something which it is evident that Karen would probably agree with what I have said especially as the outcome will be further suppression of the women and girls and continuing exposure of children to illness, illiteracy, disability and starvation.
When the executions were first established the Taliban claimed responsibility claiming that the mission was spying and promoting Christianity but later they admitted the group was bona fide aid workers, condemned the killings as murder and offered their condolences to the families promising they would deal with whoever was responsible when identified. For those of us to tend to see dark conspiracies and official cover up the reality is likely to have been a group of ruthless bandits.
According to Wikipedia the area where the group were ambushed had not been controlled by the Taliban when they were in power and therefore remained an area of lawlessness. However the Taliban was known to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian death in the country with some 1325 over the year to the ambush according to the African Human Rights Commission. However the commission did add that 28% had been caused by the allies which still totals several hundreds. While the group sponsoring the mission is Christian based they had scrupulously avoided getting involved in religious and political issues over the forty years of operation in the country covering the eras of Russian and Taliban control as well as the USA and UK and allies. The mission had been on the way back to Kabul after providing eye care to villages and had chosen the route because it was deemed safer. When the bodies were recovered all their possessions has been taken thus suggesting a motive but according to the one survivor who had chanted the Koran the killings had been methodical over a few minutes.
In addition to Karen (1) murdered was Daniela Beyer(2) a linguist from Germany and Cheryl Beckett(3) from the USA who also translated as well as providing aid. Thomas Grams (4) was a dental specialist from the USA and Glen Lapp (5) a nurse and executive assistant from the USA. Tom Little (6) 62 was an optometrist from the USA while Dan Terry (7) the eldest at 63 from the USA was experienced in liaison with local communities as well as aid organisations and government, Brian Cardereli the Videographer from the USA together with Mahram Ali a watchman from Afghanistan and the mission cook also from Afghanistan who also helped with the dispensing of glasses. There were in fact two survivors from the mission who had left the a few days before returning to Kabul by another route. There is no information as to why he left and his role and what inquiries were made about him and the other survivor to eliminate any complicit in the ambush. It would be surprising if they were not screened given the immediate involvement of the FBI and the worldwide condemnation from leaders throughout the world including the United Nations General Secretary. My one remaining concern is that nothing has been found of their possessions.
The British press also expressed horror and puzzlement at what had happened as well as describing Karen and her life and quoting her fiancée and family members. From these I learned that Karen father had been a television engineer and that her mother was a nurse. There is photo of the family attending the university graduation of one of their two sons. That this ordinary family and caring family had produced such a remarkable woman only to experience the shock and prolonged grief of her loss upset me as much as the anger and sadness at Karen’s death. In the TV programme her mother expressed her plight of all those who lose a child that she had had recovered and was getting on with life able to laugh and do things of interest and pleasure but it is all as if she is inhabiting a parallel universe with the heart and soul locked into another with the constant void of where her daughter had been and should be. Just as painful was the expression of father with that unremitting sadness in his eyes.
The programme and the media at the time of the killing also made reference to the plight of her fiancée Mark, Paddy Smith who had served in the army and was then a security adviser in Afghanistan, The two had become a couple quickly and soul mates for life. Karen was shown on camera saying that she had several relationships beforehand which had never lived up to what she been seeking but Paddy had immediately. She had a great love of cats and Mark had taken her to Russia to see a Cat circus. She wanted to have children something which Mark also expressed his wish to make both their lives complete. They and their families were looking forward to the marriage planned within a matter of days. The couple planned to remain in the UK and start a family. Then he had the responsibility of identifying Karen’s body and this evident brave man was constantly reduced to tears in a programme which he felt he owed to Karen’s memory and what she stood for, to help make.
The Daily Mail published extracts from her on line Blog. Sunday July 2011 “This is a very different place from England. The upsides are the generosity, the subtleties like the terrible driving but lack of road rage and the lack of food, space and money, but the offer to share nonetheless. The downsides are the rigidity of the system, the safety in conformity and therefore the lack of courage to break the mould by being an individual.”
“ Afghanistan has the highest rate of infant and maternal mortality in the world, one in five children does before the age of one” “ The communities who live in these remote areas get no medical care so we are hoping to be able to make a really big difference to their lives”
This is the best argument why the rest of the world should not walk away. I have mentioned before that in 1963 early on when attending the child care training course at the University of Birmingham I met someone in training to be a doctor from Kabul in the student union restaurant which had been opened on Sundays to cater for those on post graduate courses who lives in digs around the city. About the only place open in the centre of Birmingham on Sundays in those days was the city Library. I was sitting at a table with a Sunday paper and my meal when he came over and asked if she could join me and we stayed talked about our respective countries and interests for about an hour. He gave me his card with the home address saying that if ever I was in his part of the world I should contact. I kept the card for years although when after 9.11 the allies invaded Afghanistan I searched in vain.
The programme was shown only a few days after another emotional documentary this time on the community that is Wootton Basset in Wilshire, a short distance from RAF Lyneham where the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and from the M4 and a Travel Lodge where I stayed on my two visits undertaking family history at Calne, at the county Family History centre and on visits to places of family interest in the county. I must have passed through the market town village with a population of 11000, as well as the RAF station over a dozen times before the decision was taken for the families of the bereaved to gather in the town centre and stand with the local population and other visitors as the hearse arrived. Over the 100 men have passed this way.
The tolling of the Church bell and showing fo respect happened only because of changes being made at Brize Norton Oxfordshire which led to the transfer of the planes bring home the bodies to Lyneham. Lyneham closes in 2012 so the planes will go back Brize Norton and from which there is no need to pass through any town on the way to the hospital in the City of Oxford which undertakes the official post mortems. Wootton Bassett will become a Royal Borough to mark the contribution of the local population. A small garden of remembrance has been created in the town and the present Mayor, who lost a brother in the Korean War, keeps a record of messages of condolences in an album as a record for future generations. What struck me about this programme is the youth of the majority of those lives sacrificed in that trouble land.
The Brize Norton link also resonates with me as I know the area well with my first job as a child care officer in Oxfordshire and appointed to an area which included Carterton village which borders the base and where I and colleagues helped single parents with children. I once visited the base in a professional capacity leaving my car at the entrance gate and being driven to the officer of the Commanding officer to interview someone. Several hundred young women from the wider area had married GI’s and gone to live in the USA with their families forming an association. However there were those who returned for various reasons and those who never made it and were left to bring up children in the caravans and inexpensive homes in one of four caravan sites in the village.
The combination of reading about the life of Karen and experiencing the programme about Wootton Basset left feeling that the time had come to for us to get out a lad where there appears to be no gratitude from those in charge of the sacrifices being made. However the increasing evidence of the existence of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and of fundamentalist anti West sympathies among the army and its intelligence services means the necessity of maintaining a powerful presence that can intervene in the event of any known threat either the existence of a command network or the risk of the weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands of the extremists.
By any standards she was a remarkable women brought up with her two brothers in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and who decided at the age of sixteen years that it was time to leave normal schooling, suburban life with her family in 1990 to join a contemporary dance school in London- The Place. After graduation she joined the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and participated in the farewell tour in 1994 and its last ever season at Sadler’s Wells for which the company received the Lawrence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.
In the programme her father said he had been opposed to his teenage daughter going on her own to London but yielded to the counsel of his wife who had warned that to have tried to prevent her was likely to lead to a permanent break in relationships. Thus from an early age Karen showed a determination to follow her heart and her inclinations from which no one could dissuade her. Her parents communicated themselves as an intelligent and loving couple who understood the spirit, the nature and the drive of their daughter and what was to be their and her gift to the rest of us.
This need for adventure and need to feel she was contributing to those around her was again brought out by senior members of the London Dance School and Theatre and the Richard Alston Dance which became the Place in the same year that when she decided to do something more with life there was no persuading her, despite her talent as a dancer.
I can do no better than include the words of some of those who knew as dance student and then as a dancer. Robert Cohan CBE, founding Artistic Director of The Place, said t "The death of anyone as generous and caring as Karen is hard enough to bear, but her uniquely brilliant qualities of intelligence, skill and beauty make her loss even more painful for all those who knew her."
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp OBE, Chief Executive of The Place, writes: "I am sitting here in my office still trying coming to terms with the news and reading the card Karen wrote to me on the day that London Contemporary Dance Theatre gave its final ever performance, at the Marlowe Theatre Canterbury on Saturday 25 June 1994, a performance in which Karen and I both danced as members of LCDT, Karen being one of the youngest and me, one of the eldest. Needless to say Karen writes with such warmth and hope for the future; it says much about the beautiful person she was.
I have always been full of admiration for the way Karen carved out a new career in medicine. It is hard to believe that only a few months ago, she was here at The Place for the LCDS alumni reunion, happily reuniting with former friends and colleagues and talking with such passion and enthusiasm about her work in Afghanistan and the film she was making with another LCDS alumnus, James Barnard. Her deep empathy for the human condition and her extraordinary selfless courage are so evident in the work she was undertaking in Afghanistan and remain as an inspiration to all of us. The sense of loss is tremendous. Our heartfelt condolences extend to Karen’s family, her fiancé and to all those who knew and loved her."
Richard Alston, Artistic Director of The Place, writes: "I have just returned from France where I was visiting Robert Cohan, the Founding Artistic Director of the Place. Janet Eager, ‘Mop’ to the countless dancers she looked after (including Karen), was also there.
We were all three of us so deeply upset to hear of Karen’s shocking death and Bob, Mop and I wanted to add our voices to the great wave of strong feeling there is about this brave young woman.
Seventeen years ago, I had the great pleasure of choreographing for Karen and I remember so well that as a young dancer she already had something special. Karen was still a student at the Place when I made a dance to Britten’s setting of poems by Rimbaud. One poem was entitled ‘Being Beauteous’ - inevitably I chose Karen for that part, and I still think of her whenever we revive that piece, as indeed we did earlier this Summer.
As a performer she not only danced articulately and musically, she had a natural special presence, what we often call charisma. Karen had charisma by the bucketful - she shone on stage, she glowed, and audience members always asked who she was - “the beautiful girl, the one with the smile”. Given a step, she made it totally, touchingly, her own. Watching videos now of the young Karen, one can see that her dancing is light, energetic and clear, and again and again that inner warmth of hers bursts into a huge unsuppressible smile.
Dear Karen, we remember you and your remarkable life-embracing spirit with immense fondness; no brute with a mindless gun can take that away from us, no they truly cannot. We wish you peace."
Among the gifts she left was her filmed interviews and filing and her Blog writing and in the ITV programme she admits it was quite something to give up something she was good at to go off and try and become a doctor having left school with A levels.
According to The Life of Karen Woo as part of the Karen Woo Foundation Internet site her desire to explore the world led her to undertake travels to Trinidad and Tobago, Australia and Papua New Guinea as part of her training as a doctor which she commenced at the age of 24, She then took a Masters degree in Surgical Education at Imperial College London. Having made the visit to Papua New Guinea she returned to organise the provision of medical supplies
Another perspective is provide by Ray King the Chief Executive of Bupa which Karen joined in 2008 as an associate director and from where she made a visit to Afghanistan that same year and immediately found what she had needed, a cause to command all her attention in which she felt she was making a valuable contribution. Before the year with the organisation had ended she had commenced to collect medical supplies from UK health organisations to send out to Kabul.
Karen was one of a kind. Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen out group Medical Director, who worked closely with Karen remembers her how infectious enthusiasm impressed everyone she met, Andrew said of her, “ She loved teaching and engagement at the front end of clinical medicine and I know she loved her work in Afghanistan. I admired her and I was very proud of her when she took up that role. Her death at such a young age takes from us a lovely woman who has so much more to give.
A personal perspective is provided by Camilla Schickova. She begins her interview article which tool place just the day before she returned to Afghanistan
“Karen was intimidating and inspiring in equal measure. Those who met her have shared feelings of awe from having been in her presence. Some had even given up jobs that were making them unhappy to finally pursue careers that now fulfil them. As such, Karen was a constant reminder that happiness could only be reached if you make the most of who you are. People would also always comment on how stunning she was. Intelligence and looks are a combination all too often assumed to be nauseating. But with Karen I found out quickly that this would never grow tiring. I learnt from a close mutual friend that Karen’s beauty was in fact bridled alongside a strong, brave and determined mind passionate about life and work, and never failing to captivate friends and dazzle strangers with an unbeatable energy and contagious enthusiasm within everything she did. Altogether Karen was truly, inside and out, a rare gem in a still hostile world.”
So why was she executed with the others? Nothing has been established thus emphasising the limitations of the Western might in this arid desert country ruled by monster warlords with whom we do dirty business and unscrupulous politicians stealing billions of Western aid into accounts and properties in other parts of the world recognising that the Taliban the warlords will gain control and boot them out once the allies tire of the constant shedding of blood. We will need to maintain a substantial military presence to able to cross easily into Pakistan to gain control of their musical and weapons of mass destruction should the Muslim fundamentalist, drug barons and self interested politicians the ascendancy. More of the rant in a moment, something which it is evident that Karen would probably agree with what I have said especially as the outcome will be further suppression of the women and girls and continuing exposure of children to illness, illiteracy, disability and starvation.
When the executions were first established the Taliban claimed responsibility claiming that the mission was spying and promoting Christianity but later they admitted the group was bona fide aid workers, condemned the killings as murder and offered their condolences to the families promising they would deal with whoever was responsible when identified. For those of us to tend to see dark conspiracies and official cover up the reality is likely to have been a group of ruthless bandits.
According to Wikipedia the area where the group were ambushed had not been controlled by the Taliban when they were in power and therefore remained an area of lawlessness. However the Taliban was known to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian death in the country with some 1325 over the year to the ambush according to the African Human Rights Commission. However the commission did add that 28% had been caused by the allies which still totals several hundreds. While the group sponsoring the mission is Christian based they had scrupulously avoided getting involved in religious and political issues over the forty years of operation in the country covering the eras of Russian and Taliban control as well as the USA and UK and allies. The mission had been on the way back to Kabul after providing eye care to villages and had chosen the route because it was deemed safer. When the bodies were recovered all their possessions has been taken thus suggesting a motive but according to the one survivor who had chanted the Koran the killings had been methodical over a few minutes.
In addition to Karen (1) murdered was Daniela Beyer(2) a linguist from Germany and Cheryl Beckett(3) from the USA who also translated as well as providing aid. Thomas Grams (4) was a dental specialist from the USA and Glen Lapp (5) a nurse and executive assistant from the USA. Tom Little (6) 62 was an optometrist from the USA while Dan Terry (7) the eldest at 63 from the USA was experienced in liaison with local communities as well as aid organisations and government, Brian Cardereli the Videographer from the USA together with Mahram Ali a watchman from Afghanistan and the mission cook also from Afghanistan who also helped with the dispensing of glasses. There were in fact two survivors from the mission who had left the a few days before returning to Kabul by another route. There is no information as to why he left and his role and what inquiries were made about him and the other survivor to eliminate any complicit in the ambush. It would be surprising if they were not screened given the immediate involvement of the FBI and the worldwide condemnation from leaders throughout the world including the United Nations General Secretary. My one remaining concern is that nothing has been found of their possessions.
The British press also expressed horror and puzzlement at what had happened as well as describing Karen and her life and quoting her fiancée and family members. From these I learned that Karen father had been a television engineer and that her mother was a nurse. There is photo of the family attending the university graduation of one of their two sons. That this ordinary family and caring family had produced such a remarkable woman only to experience the shock and prolonged grief of her loss upset me as much as the anger and sadness at Karen’s death. In the TV programme her mother expressed her plight of all those who lose a child that she had had recovered and was getting on with life able to laugh and do things of interest and pleasure but it is all as if she is inhabiting a parallel universe with the heart and soul locked into another with the constant void of where her daughter had been and should be. Just as painful was the expression of father with that unremitting sadness in his eyes.
The programme and the media at the time of the killing also made reference to the plight of her fiancée Mark, Paddy Smith who had served in the army and was then a security adviser in Afghanistan, The two had become a couple quickly and soul mates for life. Karen was shown on camera saying that she had several relationships beforehand which had never lived up to what she been seeking but Paddy had immediately. She had a great love of cats and Mark had taken her to Russia to see a Cat circus. She wanted to have children something which Mark also expressed his wish to make both their lives complete. They and their families were looking forward to the marriage planned within a matter of days. The couple planned to remain in the UK and start a family. Then he had the responsibility of identifying Karen’s body and this evident brave man was constantly reduced to tears in a programme which he felt he owed to Karen’s memory and what she stood for, to help make.
The Daily Mail published extracts from her on line Blog. Sunday July 2011 “This is a very different place from England. The upsides are the generosity, the subtleties like the terrible driving but lack of road rage and the lack of food, space and money, but the offer to share nonetheless. The downsides are the rigidity of the system, the safety in conformity and therefore the lack of courage to break the mould by being an individual.”
“ Afghanistan has the highest rate of infant and maternal mortality in the world, one in five children does before the age of one” “ The communities who live in these remote areas get no medical care so we are hoping to be able to make a really big difference to their lives”
This is the best argument why the rest of the world should not walk away. I have mentioned before that in 1963 early on when attending the child care training course at the University of Birmingham I met someone in training to be a doctor from Kabul in the student union restaurant which had been opened on Sundays to cater for those on post graduate courses who lives in digs around the city. About the only place open in the centre of Birmingham on Sundays in those days was the city Library. I was sitting at a table with a Sunday paper and my meal when he came over and asked if she could join me and we stayed talked about our respective countries and interests for about an hour. He gave me his card with the home address saying that if ever I was in his part of the world I should contact. I kept the card for years although when after 9.11 the allies invaded Afghanistan I searched in vain.
The programme was shown only a few days after another emotional documentary this time on the community that is Wootton Basset in Wilshire, a short distance from RAF Lyneham where the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and from the M4 and a Travel Lodge where I stayed on my two visits undertaking family history at Calne, at the county Family History centre and on visits to places of family interest in the county. I must have passed through the market town village with a population of 11000, as well as the RAF station over a dozen times before the decision was taken for the families of the bereaved to gather in the town centre and stand with the local population and other visitors as the hearse arrived. Over the 100 men have passed this way.
The tolling of the Church bell and showing fo respect happened only because of changes being made at Brize Norton Oxfordshire which led to the transfer of the planes bring home the bodies to Lyneham. Lyneham closes in 2012 so the planes will go back Brize Norton and from which there is no need to pass through any town on the way to the hospital in the City of Oxford which undertakes the official post mortems. Wootton Bassett will become a Royal Borough to mark the contribution of the local population. A small garden of remembrance has been created in the town and the present Mayor, who lost a brother in the Korean War, keeps a record of messages of condolences in an album as a record for future generations. What struck me about this programme is the youth of the majority of those lives sacrificed in that trouble land.
The Brize Norton link also resonates with me as I know the area well with my first job as a child care officer in Oxfordshire and appointed to an area which included Carterton village which borders the base and where I and colleagues helped single parents with children. I once visited the base in a professional capacity leaving my car at the entrance gate and being driven to the officer of the Commanding officer to interview someone. Several hundred young women from the wider area had married GI’s and gone to live in the USA with their families forming an association. However there were those who returned for various reasons and those who never made it and were left to bring up children in the caravans and inexpensive homes in one of four caravan sites in the village.
The combination of reading about the life of Karen and experiencing the programme about Wootton Basset left feeling that the time had come to for us to get out a lad where there appears to be no gratitude from those in charge of the sacrifices being made. However the increasing evidence of the existence of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and of fundamentalist anti West sympathies among the army and its intelligence services means the necessity of maintaining a powerful presence that can intervene in the event of any known threat either the existence of a command network or the risk of the weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands of the extremists.
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