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For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 05:33
Thoughts from our Chaplaincy Team on Remembrance Sunday
In June this year, a number of events were held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Falklands Islands War. Beginning on 2nd April 1982, this was a ten week undeclared war between Argentina and the UK over control of the Falklands Islands and associated island dependencies.
Speaking about his experiences of the war at the Memorial Service in Portsmouth Cathedral, Revd. Godfrey Hilliard, an army chaplain, who in 1982, as a young man of 30, was chaplain to 40 Commando, the Royal Marines, said that on the journey to the Falklands, he spent a lot of time listening to the troop and honing his listening skills. He was told not to expect many people to come to church on Sunday but instead, actually found the service was packed.
There were even more church attendees on the way home because of a sense of relief that the war was over and also because of a sense of guilt amongst troops, who questioned why their comrades had been wounded and killed and they had survived. Recalling his memories, he remarked that “Being a chaplain in peacetime or conflict is not that different from being a parish priest. You are paid to lurk with intent, to be a presence and to help them with their lives. You stand alongside them. You just get on with it.”
He visited the troops in field hospitals and buried the dead: he conducted services in the middle of the night, because of the possibility of being attacked in daytime. Talking about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, he reflected on the psychological damage that warfare can cause, declaring that “it was such a privilege to hear people’s innermost fears and insights.” He recalled that “just like being on a ship in a storm, there are very few atheists in the middle of battle.” He would be a wealthy man if he had a pound for everyone who said “say one for me padre.”
SCORPION FV101 (T) 23 ALPHA. Flying the Blues and Royals flag and a Union flag. This tank was one of the first vehicles to reach and liberate Port Stanley, after the Battle of Wireless Ridge. The Scorpion 23 Alpha is now housed in the Eden Camp Modern History Museum, Yorks.
This Remembrance Day, we honour and pay tribute to those who fought and lost their lives in the Falklands: we salute and say thank-you to those members of staff who have seen military action in the Falklands, the Gulf, Afghanistan and in other countries. We honour and pay tribute to all those who have fought in the two World Wars and remember all lives traumatized, injured in conflict and sacrificed in the service of our Country – those family members whose memories we treasure; the stretcher bearers, medics and chaplains and all who have lived and died in the service of mankind. May we have such a devotion to justice and freedom that the heroism of all who fought, and still fight, may continue to be remembered in a nation of service and in a world of peace.
From the Chaplaincy Team
Published 13th November 2022