By Stuart Alexander of The Independent
Monday, 30 May 2011
![](http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/dynamic/00610/sam-alexander_610825t.jpg)
Marine Sam Alexander, 28, who was killed in a bomb blast in Helmand last Friday
The call, when it comes, is so stunning that everything goes numb and you shake. But the call, at 6.15pm going into a bank holiday weekend, is not a shock. It is the devastating realisation of all the worries and fears that gnaw at everyone, day and night, who has family, friends and colleagues in a theatre of war.
The other gnawing internal conflict for those same people, who support their loved ones 100 per cent in the job they are being asked to do, is that they may not be quite so enthusiastic about the policy which sends them there.
My son Sam, at 28, married to Claire with a son Leo, is dead. He was hoping to be given brief leave to be at Leo's first birthday, on 21 July, to see him take his first steps. An improvised explosive device has put paid to that, as it has for his lieutenant, Ollie Augustin. The last time Sam was written up in this newspaper he had taken a bullet through his helmet but escaped injury after leading a defensive firefight that allowed his shot and injured troop leader to be dragged to safety.
...
But, God knows, I loved you Sam and always will. And, if a faraway nondescript patch of rock and dust has claimed your flesh and blood, it can never claim your spirit, never destroy the bonds we had.
It is time the politicians were as professional as the men, including you, and the women they send to their deaths.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/was-my-sons-death-in-afghanistan-a-price-worth-paying-2290769.html:cry: