To Serve Is An Honour

In the UK people are just not giving the army the recognition it deserves, but at St Paul's Cathedral 763 servicemen and women killed as a direct result of violence in Northern Ireland were honoured.

Known as Operation Banner, it was the longest campaign in British military history, from 1969 to 2007.

John Heasley, 57, who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment in Newry, had scars to show. In 1976, he was hit by three bullets in his right leg, two in his left leg, one in his right arm and one in the back of his head.

When asked what would Northern Ireland be like if the Army hadn't stepped in?

"It would still be like 1972," he suggested.

That was the worst year of the Troubles - 496 people died, of whom 134 were soldiers.

It was also the year of Bloody Sunday when 14 unarmed civilians were shot dead by the Army.

That led many in the nationalist community to conclude that the troops were part of the problem, not the solution. The troops were sent in to protect the Catholics, hardly the armies fault if the Fenians were dumb enough to attack them.

A candle was lit in memory of the dead by Mary Moreland, whose husband John, a part-time soldier, was shot dead by the IRA just before Christmas in 1988.

She believes the conflict was a fight between "good and evil".

She said: "What we have to do is not live in the past but remember it. Don't let us rewrite history but let us remember it how it was."

It is a history covered in blood.

Northern Ireland isn't quite at peace, but the absence of troops on the streets is a sure sign that the so-called Troubles are over.

I served in this war in the late 80's and early 90's because it was a conflict that was killing my people and put us all in harms way for the religious background you were perceived to have come from. It was a war even though in the 30 plus years only 3000 people died which is the same amount as those who perished in one day on 9/11.

It affected your every day life and became a part of life. Violence carried on by the former generation that taught the young how to hate others out of stupidity and ignorance. Killing their own if it suited them, tribes of thick necked thugs and loud fishwives.

It will never be over for the normal person in the street. The police and the military will still be cagey about their jobs when asked what they do for a living when off duty because they will never be safe from their neighbours but thats the price you pay to serve.