Stephen Grey - Operation Snakebite

The envoys of the powers at war in Afghanistan seemed at least united on one point: peace in Afghanistan needed not only a deal with the enemy. It would also require a new Afghan government. Yet the fact remained that regardless of who was president there was also a lack of clear strategy, leadership and strength from the western powers who backed the Afghans.

Not only did Karzai face the almost impossible task of holding together a country bitterly divided by faction, tribe, culture and language, he was also confronted by western nations who could not agree among themselves. ‘I think the west is hugely guilty of expecting far too much from him,’ said David Richards, ‘because we ourselves don’t know what we want; we’re all singing off a different song sheet to a greater or lesser extent. Is there any surprise that he’s being accused of indecision?’

If the war failed in Afghanistan, there was no one British or American, commander or diplomat, whose career would be over, who knew they owned this struggle, who felt ultimately accountable. This was perhaps the biggest flaw of them all.

Field Marshal Montgomery’s note over Malaya to Britain’s then colonial secretary, Oliver Lyttelton, was as relevant in Afghanistan in the twenty-first century as it had been in December 1951.

Dear Lyttelton,

Malaya

We must have a plan.

Secondly we must have a man.

When we have a man and a plan, we shall succeed: not otherwise.

For all the willingness of statesmen to praise the sacrifice of soldiers and to mourn the death of civilians, none of their well-meant kind wishes absolved those men and women of the obligation to forge a strategy that could even conceivably make some good of all this horror and strain. The failure of departments to end their sniping and work together, to go beyond the endless ‘muddling through’, was to my mind inexcusable.

I could not think of better words than those that end the combat in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan . As the fictional Captain John H. Miller lay dying, he looked up to Private James Ryan and said: ‘James… earn this. Earn it.’

Those who have died or suffered in this war look down today on those in command, and indeed on all of us. They demand that we earn their sacrifice.

It was Armistice Day, 11 November 2008, when I took the train up to Stockton-on-Tees to see Lee ‘Jonno’ Johnson’s parents, Alan and Sandra. It was Alan’s birthday. ‘I grew up with hearing the Last Post on my birthday,’ he said.

On the wall in the living room is a large framed photograph of Lee and his brother and two sisters all in their judo outfits. They were all champions. They have about 800 judo trophies in the loft, they say. But taking the kids round the country had been expensive. For a while Alan had been unemployed. He used to buy turkeys and fatten them up and kill them and pluck their feathers to sell them to make a bit extra. Lee and the kids used to be out on street corners selling whelks and vegetables from the allotment garden – all of that to pay for the judo.

The phone rings. It’s their other son, Don, who has phoned from Warminster, where the 2 Yorks have sent him on a course. He wants to wish his dad happy birthday. They have a brief chat and then, as it always is, the phone is passed from father to mother. Sandra goes off to the kitchen to take the call.

‘I’m not very good on the phone. I never have been. I don’t even want to answer it,’ said Alan.

This reminds us of Lee’s phone calls home from Afghanistan.

The first was to say he had decided to marry Lisa, the mother of his then two-year-old girl, Lilly. The last time, a few days before he died, was to say he might not live. ‘They’re things happening here I can’t tell you about,’ he said. He wanted them to know he was doing what he loved and to make sure they told everyone that, if he died. Lee thought the Afghan soldiers he was training were great too. ‘They’ll follow you anywhere!’ he enthused.

Don had called from Kajaki shortly after Lee’s last call and told them of the mine explosion that killed his interpreter, the blast that should have killed Don if he hadn’t kneeled down for some reason.

‘Lee says he loves it out there.’

‘He wouldn’t say that if he had been through what I’ve just been through.’

Alan’s father was in the Parachute Regiment in the Second World War. He was dropped in the ill-fated Arnhem venture – the ‘bridge too far’ – and was taken prisoner by the Germans. He was never the same man afterwards. He would never talk about it. He would walk out the room if the subject even came up.

Alan works in Stockton Foundries, dodging the sparks that fly as he melts scrap metal in a 1,500-degree furnace and then casts it. His work begins at 6 a.m. each day, but since Jonno died they never wake after 4 a.m. Often it’s a lot earlier. Alan does not like his breaks at work any more. He hardly likes talking to anyone though, as he admits, ‘Once I start, there is no stopping me.

‘The strange thing is that, when he was alive, I hardly used to think about Lee. Now I think about him all the time.’

There was talk of burying his son in a military cemetery alongside all the world war victims, but he is glad Lee is laid to rest in Stockton’s Durham Road, where many of his family are buried and where Alan and Sandra have booked their plot next to his. Alan often drops by on the way home from work and before his tea.

He still kicks himself a little that he was always hard on his son. He can’t remember ever praising him. ‘He came back and said he was made sergeant. I told him I would have made general!’

Lee seemed strangely lonely in the last few months. ‘He had so many friends, and I’m not sure any of them would realize.’ He used to come back home frequently, but his mind was far away, like he was trying to sort things out in his head. ‘I only wish he could have just come back and sat down for an hour and told us what he wanted to make of his life.’

Strange things happened after Lee died. A kettle started boiling for no reason. A living-room ornament they thought was silent started to play a tune. They asked the heavens for a sign that Lee was up there. The sky was dull with clouds. Then just one small patch in the clouds opened up, and a star shone through.

We talk about coping with his death. I mention a great-grandfather of mine who died with the Durham Light Infantry in the First World War. In those days, you just got a telegram to say your son or husband was dead. But then the nation as a whole could share your grief. These days no one really knows about this conflict. As General Dannatt put it to me, ‘I think the army is at war; the nation is not at war.’

People say the strangest things to the Johnson family. They don’t mean to be rude, probably. They just don’t know how to react. Alan and Sandra were at a military museum and told the curator they had lost their son in the war. ‘He just said, “How interesting!” and walked off back to his work.’

When I see Lisa, with little Lilly sitting near by watching the television, we talk about the same thing. ‘No one really understands the army or squaddies,’ she says. ‘They don’t know what they are doing or the brave things they are doing. And the sad thing is they have to die before you find out!’ She works at Tesco, and managers there ‘who just stack shelves’ are paid more than most soldiers.

I find it hard to keep my eyes dry as I speak to Lisa. Lilly has abandoned the television and is starting to leaf through an album of photographs of her dad. She told Lilly what happened soon after he died. She had to explain why everyone was crying. ‘She knew he was a soldier, and I told her the truth. I explained that Daddy got killed and that, when she sees the stars twinkling in the heaven, that is Daddy watching her.’