Honouring The Past, Absent Friends - What Remembrance Day Means to Me

Councillor Tony Devanny - Armed Forces Champion

Where to start? For me, like many serving soldiers and veterans, Remembrance isn't something that happens just once a year. I personally remember every single day the loss of many friends and colleagues across my operational tours in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and three tours of Afghanistan.

Carrying those memories brings an intense complex raft of personal emotions, deep friendship, joy and a bond of comradeship like no other, alongside profound loss. It also comes with a sense of guilt at coming home that is hard to explain, and a strange longing to return to those places that is even more difficult to articulate to anyone who hasn't served.

My time in the Armed Forces spanned multiple decades and some of the most challenging environments of recent history. Across those years, you get to see the full spectrum of human conflict and everything that entails. You get to serve with many of the best of us, enjoy epic highs and lows that live with you for a lifetime.

It is also a time to remember those friends and colleagues who came home carrying injuries, both seen and unseen. All conflicts and wars have a mental and physical impact on soldiers. It is a heavy weight to carry, especially when you leave the service and lose that immediate support network and the gallows humour that so often served as our free counselling.

For me, and every veteran I am sure is different, Remembrance Day is the moment when the rest of the world pauses to share in that weight, honouring those who sacrificed everything and recognising the ongoing journey of those who returned.

When I returned from my third tour of Afghanistan, I sat to reflect on a couple of years that saw my Unit 3 YORKS lose far too many, including some close friends. This included a young soldier called Thomas Wroe who went to school and was friends with my eldest son, his dad was a friend who served in the same unit as I did. 

I sat down and wrote some words to try reflect on all these losses, these words were seen by others and ended up with my poem, titled We Who Remain, chosen by The Royal Mint to accompany an official Remembrance Day coin, a tribute to all who served and a lasting reminder of the strength and resilience of our military community, happy to share that with you in this article.

We Who Remain

We are indeed the lucky and unlucky ones,
As we are the ones who have lived to tell the tales of those we once knew.
We are the ones who carry those scars of things seen, done and lost.
We are the ones who must never let those who are not here be forgotten by the new.
We are the ones who will never need to be reminded that, "We will remember them,"
As we are the ones who will always remember those we forever call friend.

To be completely honest, I haven't attended a Remembrance Day event since leaving the Army in 2013. The reality is that Remembrance parades hold a soldier /veteran to account. They draw you in emotionally and give the mind too much time to remember events and friends you've lost. Standing there forces you to drop your " I am fine" day face.

Attending two services in one day this year I know will be challenging, but it comes with the role and is deeply necessary.

That is precisely why I encourage everyone in St Helens Borough to attend their local service. When you stand at a Remembrance service, you aren't just remembering past history, you are holding space for veterans, service families and those carrying invisible scars.

Your presence tells veterans, service families and those carrying those invisible scars that they do not carry that weight alone. More importantly, it ensures that the sacrifice of those who never came home will never be forgotten by the community they served to protect, in our case, St Helens.

We will remember them.

https://news.sthelens.gov.uk/article/15542/St-Helens-Borough-to-come-together-for-Remembrance-Sunday