Iraqis And Brits Remember Dead Together

By Cernig

It's Remembrance Sunday in the UK, the Sunday closest to the 11th of November, when at 11 minutes past 11 the Great War ended in 1918. A day to remember those fallen in Britain's wars - almost a million and a half in the two World Wars alone.

And in the middle of the desert in Iraq, a remembrance service for Britons fallen on that foreign field, along with the unknown but far larger number of Iraqis killed:

It looks like another combat mission, but elements of the 7th Armoured Brigade have gathered for arguably one of the most unique Remembrance Sunday services.

The location, a remote British war memorial, built in down town Basra in 1921, moved by Saddam Hussein in 1997, and rediscovered by troops working here in July this year.

Over 40,000 British and Commonwealth troops are remembered on the walls of this enormous building and despite the logistical problems and security risks the military were determined to conduct a final service of remembrance in the desert before they depart next year.

In recent months the British forces have been living and working with their Iraqi counterparts in 18 mentoring sites dotted around Basra.

On Sunday the Iraqi soldiers joined the British for the service, the troops standing side by side throughout the traditional two minutes of silence.

... "It was good of the Iraqi army to come to this and it was good of the Imam and the Padre to work out a combined service, it can be very difficult," Lt Colonel Felix Gedney, head of the mentoring operation in Basra, told me.

This was a good thing to do, on so many levels, on such a sad and thoughtful day when we should be remembering what we have in common as mere humans, not what divides us into warring factions.