Gunner Clifford Loring

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[bigal Association Member of WUSA Find all posts View Profile Close bigal]

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[spanner Association Member & WUSA Overseas rep aka Cathie Find all posts View Profile Close spanner]

Another year has gone by, I am at the park in Bellbowrie near the Moggil cenotaph. We will not forget you Clifford.

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Bellbowrie? Is that at the front or back of the club? (in joke)

[Jock2413 Association Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jock2413]

Rest easy Gunner.
A couple of years back, I stood on the exact spot near as damn it and had a quiet moment. Stockman's lane looks a lot different now but I can still recall how it looked then.

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[bigal Association Member of WUSA Find all posts View Profile Close bigal]

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A face to go with the name. So young, but then again they all were as were we who went and came back.

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I have a very similar photo of me at Oswestry, looks like we were all kids at the time. So many young lives cut short and the way things are today,we have to ask "For what?"

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A lot of people ask that question about the Fallen from every conflict that our Armed Forces have been involved in. We joined up for a lot of different reasons, not intending to be killed but that is part of the whole deal. Getting orders to go to the next posting, regardless of where it was, no one stopped to think about the reasons or politics or any other imperative...they thought about if it would be good craic, an adventure, a pain in the arse, a disruption to home life, would there be any drink or wimmen. It became serious and personal only when it cost in injuries or death amongst friends, and then it was about revenge. And understandably so. But the bigger picture, the politics or those involved, and to a large extent the ordinary public ('enemy'?) did not figure in the reckoning process. Later, when we had time to process it all (if ever) then 'worth' began to figure as somehow being relevant. But how do you even begin to quantify 'worth'? It's personal...and only based on what values we place on the loss we feel personally. For myself, I can't quantify losses against political 'gain' or how much peace/freedom/ saved lives have resulted from the deaths we suffered, not even counting the personal cost to those of us who came home. So perhaps the question is too complicated to find an answer to in pure terms of value per death....I prefer to think of it in terms of losses that happened, that were a tragedy but the cost we commemorate and hold in remembrance. To try to 'value' our sacrifices against 'gains' is, to my reckoning, not worth the effort. It is enough to remember, each year, in the pure terms of lost friends and comrades.

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20 volunteers wanted to go to Northern Ireland as drivers so releasing 20 men of the host regt to do the proper soldiering.
"Who is the host regt sir?"
"Second something or other, not really allowed to say"
"Second Queens is due for another trip out there aint they sir?"
"I do believe they are, not my place to say"
20 volunteers names on his desk by lunchtime - mine one of the first. We would all have to go sooner or later and I'd rather go with some proper soldiers than as a lump in a regt of Rickshaws Cabs & Taxis, eh?
Turned out to be 2 Fld RA {{{shudder}}} but I learned far more about the British Army as a whole in that tour than I would have done had I waited and gone out with my own regiment. Good bunch them 'orrible gunners. (Dont say I said so or it will spoil my street cred.)