We shall be in Afghanistan for as long as we were in Northern Ireland, said Brigadier John Lorimer, the Army commander in Helmand province, last week. He meant that, given the tactical progress and the difficulties of reconstruction, the Army must brace itself for a long haul (if the Government has the will to see it through). But the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, says the Army is at full stretch. Can it take the long haul, therefore?..
[Not exactly what was said regarding a major military commitment:]
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2141901,00.html
There are obvious worries here regarding a long war in Afghanistan. Although its legitimacy is not as questionable as in Iraq, it is still a war of choice, and its relevance to a strategy of defeating Islamist terrorism is not universally recognised. In part this is because the strategy (if there is one) has not been well articulated. Ministers therefore have a crucial role to play in maintaining the troops' morale...
The other factor is what Montgomery called "the thousand matters embraced by the term 'welfare' ". Hardship and privation are the school of the good soldier, but attending to his welfare is vital in maintaining his self-respect and strengthening his confidence in his superiors. Poor accommodation and unattractive conditions of service have been highlighted in these pages, but one area risks becoming a national scandal, dangerously corrosive to long-term morale: the treatment of casualties.
All our military hospitals have been closed. Last year, General Dannatt was outraged at some of what he found at the Centre for Defence Medicine, a wing of Selly Oak Hospital. The clinical treatment, said to be excellent, was not founded on a proper military nursing regime.
Things have improved, but there is a palpable sense in the wider service community that not having the nationwide network of small but capable hospitals, run by and for people in uniform, is hindering long-term treatment and rehabilitation, and further eroding the soldier's self-respect. It goes particularly hard, too, with the TA, on whom the Army is having to rely increasingly on operations.
Besides the question of sheer decency in how the nation treats its wounded soldiers, in time these shortcomings will have their effect on those facing active service - and, indeed, on recruiting. It is always said that the best recruiter is a satisfied soldier: what is the recruiting potential of a dissatisfied wounded soldier?
Almost as bad are the recent manifestations of public indifference to the soldier's plight. The nimbyism in Ashtead, where the residents opposed the purchase of a house by a Service charity so that relatives could stay overnight while visiting Headley Court, the Services' rehabilitation centre, is sickening...
