Frustration - A 22 Weeks to home short

The hall is large, leased out by the local YMCA for group sessions and the like. This weekend, and every second weekend of each month, it becomes a centre for veterans to come, directed by their doctors, or their friends, or their family, to talk about their issues. While I'm honoured that Isiat has asked me to accompany him today, I can't help but feel disastrously out of place, like a cat in a dog park. A sharp jab to the ribs brings my focus back quickly enough to miss tripping on the door frame.

“Pay attention reporter. Ya' wanted to tell the story. You're here because you need to be. Feck, someone has got to tell it…" 

Ewan McGregor, Lieutenant, 22nd Regiment SAS (Retired) reminds me of this on our way inside, the russet of his fur neatly groomed, just like last time we met. From what I can tell, most of the entire surviving group from their aptly named 22 Week tour is here, as well as numerous others, divided into large rings of fold-out seats, about twenty to each, and a handful of councillors.

It's been 12 months since we last spoke, though it seems in among this group that time has almost stood still. Isiat's black fur is just as salt and peppered as our last meeting, Eyesah has grown a small white beard on the end of his muzzle, and Danny Parker is still as tall and looming as ever, even though the dragon declined to be interviewed last time, and instead just provided me with a letter that he wrote after the incident. Ryan Hunter declined to come.

“Nah, mate… I don't like those. I had my moment, I got past it. I'm doing just fine. Let them do what they think they need to do. If you want another interview, you can catch me later on." He'd said during a clipped and brief phone call a few days prior.

In those 12 months, I'm not sure how much progress I've made on this story. Two binders full of interview notes, numerous notepads of scrawling, indecipherable strings of thoughts, sketches, photos, draft copies, maps, even an old faded polaroid of a group of friends smiling while posing on the edge of a Challenger 2 tank. So far, all it seems to have led me to is more and more frustration with it. Perhaps it's the same way that they feel, coming to these sessions without ever seeing a great deal of progress. Like walking inside a wheel. No matter how many steps they take, they never really move.

I scratch the thought down with my other notes as we find seats. The counsellor is a nice young lady, but her plaid shirt has a pattern on it that looks like it was pulled from the set of Braveheart. Slowly, more shuffle in, the young, the old, men from Isiat's war, and the one before it, and after it as well. The symptoms don't know one particular age group or ethnicity, but all of their issues are as genuine as the next man's, regardless of where or when they began. 

“So, who would like to begin this month? Does anyone have anything they'd like to share?"

It's about as good of an icebreaker for these men as the Titanic. There's a few quiet mutterings, greetings and whispers. Eyesah reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and then stops himself, remembering that this is a no-smoking area. Even so, he idly fingers his pocket, only a conscious thought stopping him from fiddling any further.

Someone finally offers up a reprieve from the awkward silence, discussing a new job they recently took, and I watch as Isiat visibly releases a breath he was holding a few chairs down. At his side, Shadi gently pets his hand, trying to reassure her husband. It's a routine I've seen her go through before during previous meetings when she knows the answers to the questions aren't topics he wants to or enjoys putting out to discuss.

He calms after a moment, nods thankfully at her, and turns his head back to the former soldier discussing going through his recovery, just like he no doubt will have to do when the conversation comes around the circle to his turn.

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The small home in the Scottish countryside is as unassuming as they come, down a long dirt road and with a gravel lined driveway leading between hanging willow trees that seclude this little piece of history away from the rest of the world. Supposedly, it's been here since some time in the early 1900s and stood through two world wars without so much as a sign of even being disturbed by the newer jet fighters flying overhead from the Royal Air Force base just to the North.

It takes a few moments after I knock on the thick wooden door for an older wolf to open the door, a baker's apron tied around her neck. Through her thick accent, I can barely keep up with her hurried explanation, but manage to make out her directions when she has to repeat herself a little slower for me.

“Oh, you must be the journalist. Matthew's out back in the garden, just go round the side hon', I'll put on some tea for us!"

Sure enough, I find Matthew, more commonly known as 'Mack' within his circle of friends, bent over on his knees tending to a small raspberry bush planted along a row of wooden stakes, diligently clipping off dried stems and pulling weeds. By the state of his leather gloves, he's been at it a while, and he seems grateful for the interruption when I introduce myself. When I shake his paw, two fingers on the glove hang down loosely.

He politely and quickly guides me over to their small paved patio around the back of the house, sitting across a long, frosted glass topped picnic table from me while I set up my recording things on the table.

“Sorry I wasn't available last time you were doing all this… I don't think I'd have been much help then regardless." His accent is smooth, reminiscent of Connery almost in its own way. When I mention this, he laughs, placing his gloves down on the table as he grins, looking across at me, well… Wolfishly. His black eyepatch only seems to add to the air of intimidation I get around him, along with the numerous scars and the missing pinky and ring finger on his right hand. He's tall, scarred, and built like the tanks he used to drive, despite his injuries.

I accept his apology, and quickly move along to my questions as Martha, his wife, quickly ducks inside to grab something. I look down at my list of prepared notes containing all the questions I'd hoped to ask, and then set it aside as Martha returns with fresh scones and a tea set with three cups steaming on a silver platter.

“If I might, how did you two.."

“Meet?" The wolf interjects helpfully, a hearty chuckle escaping him. “We've been sweethearts since our school years. I stupidly asked her for a kiss because I thought she was an angel. She stupidly gave me one, and that was that. She told me she'd kill me herself if I didn't come back from over there, so… I did. Wasn't an easy thing, but I made it back mostly intact." He chuckles, gesturing to the twin knots of scar tissue where the fingers on his right paw are missing.

Despite his injuries, Mack seems to dismiss them as trivial at most, a 'Minor inconvenience' at their worst times. 

“Aye, it was harder at first, getting used to only seeing half of what you're used to. I was in a hospital in Germany for a few weeks in intensive while they dug all of the shrapnel out. Nasty thing it was. Even with everything stored and secured, things can still go wrong even when you did everything right." He stands up and leads me inside, showing me a twisted piece of metal with broken shards of glass on it, scorched and burned from intense heat.

“It's all that's left of the driver's viewport. One of the REME guys saved it for me when they were in the process of scrapping the wreckage. Tandem shot, you see? The Ruskies made them to beat explosive reactive armour, basically a square box of boom strapped to the vehicle designed to go off when something hits it to negate the effect. Tandem shots have two charges. One to trigger the ERA, and the second to punch through the armour underneath. The first charge hit the window square on and blew it to hell. The second didn't go off right away and sailed into the back before it blew. Gave me a face full of glass and steel, leading to my dashing good looks, you see?"

His grin is wolfish, but it's clear from the glint in his eye he knows just how close a brush with death came that day. Tentatively, he runs a finger along the deformed metal, letting the tips of his three good fingers brush along it. He hesitates and then jerks his hand away as if it had been bit with a sharp hiss.

When he shows me, his index finger is bleeding very slightly from a tiny sliver of metal that caught in the leathery pad. Martha goes to fetch a pair of tweezers to remove it, berating him about Mack being an old fool all the way to the bathroom and back. When it's done, there's a half-inch long metal shaving about as thick as a fine wire laid in his paw.

“See? Even now it's still trying to get me… Now try and imagine having 230 pieces of that and broken metal in you, and you'll be beginning to get the idea…" He disposes of it in a bin, and our conversation resumes on the living room sofa. Hesitantly, I move on to ask my other questions.

“So what do you remember from the incident?"

“It hurt. Good lord did it hurt…" He starts, the bushy tail behind him giving what seems almost like a sad flick, before laying limply behind himself. Reaching up, he rubs his forehead. “I remember a puff of smoke and the god almighty crash when it hit. Remember everything going dark, and waking up to a world that was half as bright…"

Almost in an afterthought, the wolf reaches up, quietly lifting his eyepatch to rub at the edge of the remains of his ruined eye, before lowering the patch back into position, covering the grisly wound once more.

“The entire interior felt like it was aflame. Ammo storage was covered in molten metal, and the rounds were starting to cook-off. The driver's hatch was shagged, and Joker…" He pauses in his retelling, biting his lower lip. “There was nothing we could have done, but I wasn't going to leave him there. Foxman had already dragged himself up through the cupola, and Isiat, that stupid bastard, he was up on the turret trying to haul the rest of us out. Burned the hell out of himself doing it but I don't think I'd have made it out without him… A lucky thing really. They make those SAS boys tough…" The wolf sighs wistfully, looking out the window at the almost picturesque view.

“I'm damned certain I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for his sheer stupidity… But I pushed Joker up and out before I let him drag me up. He crawled down into the tank to get…" There's a pause, and Mack sighs, gesturing to stop the interview for a moment. Politely, I take the opportunity to step outside and have a cigarette before Mack and Martha join me again, the hulking wolf now looking a little more collected.

“Sorry 'bout that. It's… Yeah." He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. After a long moment, he sighs, looking out at the view from the patio.

“I'm glad Isiat got recognized for it, for what he did. Fools and Heroes are two sides of the same coin if you ask me. A fool dives into a burning tank, but the hero makes it out. VC… A medal that's earned in another's blood oft enough… You can ask Isiat. He hates the thing they gave him. Even on parade, he chose just to wear the bar for it and not the medal itself… It's a heavy thing, especially when he earned it the way he did… Wouldn't be so bad if everyone had made it home from that tour."

The wolf scoffs, shaking his head.

“Wouldn't be so rough if we'd all made it back in one piece."

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Isiat shifts again in his seat. The conversation is slowly moving in his direction around the circle, and even the most oblivious person could tell at a glance how uncomfortable it makes him. Beside him, Shadi has scooted closer, resting her head on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. How well it is working is open to debate.

After several tales of progress or regression are shared, the discussion finally moves into the group I've accompanied, starting with the most typical European red fox one could imagine, twiddling his thumbs in his lap before he reaches up to adjust the square rimmed glasses perched upon his muzzle. 

“Alright mister Foxman, what about you? How have you been doing since last time? You said you had your daughter's birthday, yes?" The counsellor asks, but William seems hesitant to answer. The obvious runt in this litter of friends, former Staff Sergeant. William Foxman was almost immediately tagged by the group as their 'Freeman' of the group, primarily because of his quiet nature and resemblance to the protagonist from Valve's Half-Life game, just without the PHD to go along with it. Instead, he'd entered as enlisted a few years before Isiat's own joining of the armed forces, and worked his way through the ranks in the School of Armor.

With short-cropped brown hair and a beige button-up shirt, he's potentially the most 'normal' looking of the group aside from Eyesah, though supposedly the enlistment rates of European red foxes are notably higher in parts of Northern Wales where he hails from.

“Oh, uh, yes… It was good, all went well, and she had a blast, so that's the important thing, isn't it?"

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The rush of supersonic jets overhead ploughing through the canyon at near the speed of sound is almost deafening as they race by, though watching from the mountainside of the Machynlleth Loop, it's hard not to be in awe of the power and agility behind the machines. We're plane spotting from the mountain simply designated CAD WEST, a short drive down from the Cross Foxes inn where I'm staying for this portion of the interview.

The hillside is coated with a speckling of bright orange and blue from the thick jackets worn by those willing to make the climb. It's a similar sight all the way around the loop, however. Like a childish fascination, everyone wants to see the big loud fighter planes go roaring past.

“You know, I originally was going to go into the air force. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, cruise at 22,000 feet and look at the world far below me. Of course, when I turned about fifteen, I quickly realized I had a fear of dizzying heights, and when I enlisted, a metal box covered in armour on the ground seemed like a much better choice!" The Fox has to raise his voice as a pair of American F22 Raptors go shooting down the canyon between us and the opposite hill, rolling on their sides to flash their sealed underbellies at the onlookers as they pass. 

Will just laughs, his face struck with a giddy grin. 

“Fecking brilliant, aren't they? Of course, the air force would drum you out faster than you could blink if you did what we used to do with the Challengers. God help you for flying a glass cannon, but after Iraq, I'd not have had it any other way. I'll take my box any day of the week." We share a laugh and sit on the fold-out chairs the group have brought along. Nearby, the rest of the gang are 'Brewing up' around a portable gas stove with a kettle perched on top. A wall of hands protects the delicate flames from the gusting wind and the blast of air that accompanies a transonic flyby.

“So what exactly do you remember from that day? Can you recall what happened at all, or?" There's a few brief moments of hesitation, and I can see it even behind the black wraparounds on the bridge of the fox's nose. These men all have their demons, and some are more comfortable with that than the others.

“I got lucky of course. I was on the gun when it happened, behind the breach from where it hit. Blue, uh, Redman. Willy. He'd taken over as loader. Least it was a quick death. I'm not sure if it was fragments or something else, or if maybe he hit something once the round went off…" The Fox looks off into the distance for a moment, distracting himself with the next flyby, not speaking until the roar of the jet is disappearing in the canyon behind us.

“It was clean, and he died doing what he loved. Couldn't have asked for more than that. The next thing I knew I was pushing him up through the top hatch and hauling myself free. It was chaotic you know? Just boom boom boom." He says, snapping his fingers in time with his words.

“You run on instinct and training. Our vehicle was knocked out, and my instinct was to leave the vehicle at once. Looking back, I wish I'd stayed to check on Mack and Joker first, but the inside of the Chally was like an oven, and every instinct was screaming that I needed to get out or I was going to die as well. I only found out afterwards I'd broken four ribs and suffered burns to about 30% of my legs and tail… Got lucky, comparatively." He finished with a morbid chuckle, lifting his chin over towards Mack, sitting back in the circle of others around the tea as it brews.

“Somewhere between the impact and me figuring out what was going on, Isiat had already gotten to the top hatch. Must have been a good sixty feet to the building they'd been providing cover from, and he just up and ran it from what I heard later, like a mad man shouting and firing from the hip as he did. He was the one who helped us all get out. The whole tank cooked off about thirty seconds after we were all back in cover…" He pauses, putting his hands together to form a closed ball in his lap, tapping it against his thighs with a look on his muzzle like he's debating what to say, or if he should say anything at all.

“Joker was still alive then… The medics, they uh… They had tourniqued his arm, but…" He pauses, fidgeting, and he spends a moment adjusting his glasses as a solo Eurofighter Typhoon races through the mountains. I see the fox muttering as it passes, but his words are snatched away by the roar of the transonic flyby.

“It would have been better I think if he'd gone with Blue. He didn't say anything the whole time, but he was conscious. Kept looking around and groaning between coughing up blood, and just… You could see the fear, you know? We closed his eyes before the Para-rescue guys showed up." Even through his glasses, there's a look as he says that. The memory is burned into his eyes with haunting clarity, and it scares him. Without realizing, the hackles on his neck have raised, and after a moment, I look away, watching a low and slow pass by a C-130 Hercules. 

“It's not a comfortable thing to live with, but… We all manage. It's nice to have the old crew back together more often. Feels like we've actually got something of a support network. We'll call each other just to check-in, the wives and ladies get together and have wine and movie days…" The vulpine pauses, a soft sigh passing the smile on his lips.

“Just wished we were all so lucky. We got back here, and the system just felt like it collapsed behind us. We did our jobs, and the moment we were out, we were more an inconvenience than anything of worth. It took nearly a year before I even got a referral to see someone and talk about anything, and over six months to get a proper prescription for something that worked for my pain… We served our time, and the state just fucking brushed us off like dirt on your boots. 'Thanks for your service. Good luck now!'" 

Any cool that Foxman had is long gone, and his teeth are bared in feral reflex as he vents his frustration, his tail lashing back and forth almost violently.

“They don't prepare you for how drastic the shift back to civilian life is. You have to go out, get a job from a guy who wasn't in the shit beside you, doesn't understand why you were late because you spent the morning trying to calm down from a panic attack because a car honked at you on the way out. Who doesn't have the first clue about why you're always on edge, why just-" He cuts himself off, pausing to take a breath. Finally, he lets it out, and with a chuckle and a smile, continues more calmly.

“Yeah… Can you tell that I had a grand old time trying to find work after I left the service?" The laugh he makes is mirthless, like a condemned man laughing at his own misfortune. Reaching into his pocket, he procures a lighter and proceeds to try and light a cheap cigarillo, but against the wind and the rush of another passing jet, all he achieves is some sparks and a frustrated growl.

“It's a struggle… It is every day, and probably will be for a while yet, but hey… At least you're trying to tell the story. Most folks don't even want to hear it. It's not a story you'd tell to children after all…. Fuck Fallujah. I wished they'd just bombed it into the ground."

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The next to speak in the circle is an interesting case. Ukrainian born Victor Tashkov is the quiet one in the group, soft and seldom spoken, but supposedly fierce in his own right. The only son of a doctor and a nurse, it's unsurprising the tall, athletic panther himself went into the medical field, albeit, in a somewhat different route than his parents may have liked.

“Victor, would you like to share anything today?"

There's something there in the feline's predatory gaze as he looks up from his phone briefly, glancing around the circle.

“Pass." 

His response is flat, growled, like his being here is more of a courtesy to the rest of the group than seeking any real help himself. It's clear that he's someone used to being by himself, and dealing with his own issues himself rather than sharing them externally.

His tail twitches as his gaze wanders over to me. Unlike the rest of the group, Victor is the only one who truly intimidates me. Something about the calculating way his gaze wanders is unsettling, and despite myself, I can feel the hairs on my arm standing on end.

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“Multiple blast wounds from overpressure. Right arm amputated just below the elbow. Left foot amputated at the ankle. Multiple deep laceration injuries over the upper torso and face. He was hemorrhaging from at least three places, and his right lung had collapsed when they dragged him into the building. It was a miracle we kept him alive until the medevac arrived. It may have been kinder to just slip him another morphine shot and let him go." The panther recounts his side of the story.

Home at his small, suburban cottage, Victor sits with his tail flicking beside him, reading off the list of injuries like it had been committed to memory. When he talks, there's little emotion behind it. More of just a bitter understanding that all the facts he recounts mean that one of his closest friends is gone, and not coming back. His eyes glance up and meet my own. There's something fierce in the feline's golden irises. It's sincerely intimidating.

“Blue was already gone when they brought him back into cover. Massive trauma to the head. Velocity wounds from spalling. Shrapnel had pierced his chest, and a three-inch sliver of steel had perforated the chest cavity and impaled itself in his aorta. He'd have bled out. It's a mercy that he died instantly. Joker fell unconscious just after they brought him in, but he was already non-responsive to stimuli at the point."

The Panther sighs, sipping from the bottle of larger on the coffee table between us. Mine sits as well, and politely, I take the pause as a sign to drink under his scrutiny. The larger is almost warm, just tolerably cold, but the flavour is bitter and harsh. How the panther enjoys it is beyond me entirely.

“So, what exactly occurred that day?“

Victor takes a moment to light up a cheap cigarillo before he furnishes me with answers, filling the room with the scent of low-quality tobacco, masked behind a vanilla scent to make it more palatable. His tail gives a single flick, before curling over the armrest of his chair.

“You've read the report. Why don't you tell me? We were in the field. The tank got knocked out. We were the closest element not engaged and able to assist. Close air support was unavailable, and you can't exactly have an F16 drop a bomb on targets just a few hundred meters from yourself, especially in an urban environment. Nobody wants to see that on BBC at 5… Looking back, it was a perfect mix of wrong place, wrong time, and bad luck…" He pauses a moment, taking a drag on the smouldering tobacco through its birchwood tip.

“We got in, met up with some boys from 2 Commando who'd been moving with the group, and set up a perimeter around the tank, as much as we could. They'd already popped all the smoke they could into the street, but once it dissipated, all we had was firepower and quickly dwindling ammo. Usually, you've got around 8 mags on you, plus spares in your pack, depending. L85's and the M4's we had all fire around 700 rounds a minute, give or take. 8 by 30 gives you 240, 270 if you have an extra loaded in your weapon already. On auto, that gives you about 25 seconds of continuous trigger time. Even with single shots, it goes fast. I gave half my mags to Eyesah when we got there and set up triage in someone's living room for the ones already wounded."

There a pregnant pause while Victor just watches me, the stub of the cigar slowly burning ever closer to the wooden mouthpiece. I look away, taking a few notes, and it's almost a minute before he continues the recounting of the events.

“Next thing you know, loud bang, explosion, yelling, and Eyesah's shouting with his stupid fucking accent for Isiat to get the fuck back in cover. I go to check the commotion just as one of 2 commando's officers shouts for suppression, and next thing you know, I'm at a window opening up on anything down the street that fucking moves, and Isiat is running back across the open stretch with Joker over his shoulders, and Foxman is helping carry Mack into cover while Eyesah bolts out with the lads to bring Red's body back inside… It was… Fucking crazy, and all over as quickly as it began. Isiat grabbed a launcher himself to bring down the building the round had come from."

“And that was why they gave him the VC for it?" I ask after a moment of hesitation.

“DSF recommended it personally after regimental higher-ups read the report and passed on their recommendations. Ten eyewitness accounts were pretty hard to refute in any meaningful way, with three of them being commissioned officers. We didn't care. He didn't care. We just had two more friends to bury. Perhaps it was a mercy neither of them had a family to leave behind. Joker's fiance was all torn up, but she left back to Europe after the service. We all had a drink for them at the pub, and the others we'd lost. Not much else to it. The dead don't tell stories, reporter, else you'd be asking their graves."

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Mercifully, the soldier next to Isiat is taking his time trying to explain his conflicted feelings about his time in the service to the group, allowing the many tailed vulpine a respite from the gazes, from the conversation. His tails flicker all out of synch, and I can tell he's anxious even thinking about it.

When the other man finally finishes, and the group discussion about it ends, he knows his time is up. Shadi can sense it as well, and gives his head a tight squeeze by his side as he clears his throat, and folds his paws in his lap, sighing. At last, the moment of fate has arrived, and he knows it's his turn.

“Well, Isiat? How have you been managing? Any updates to share since our last session?"

There's a pregnant pause before he does speak, looking up like a guilty man at confession.

“Yeah… Is it bad I wish I were back there?"

The revelation seems to draw the group further into their silence, but for many veterans, his words are an ugly truth that confronts them every day as much as the things that they saw or did. For many, war provides a sense of order and camaraderie that they are simply unable to replicate in the civilian world.

Isiat glances over at me, and there's a look there on his features and in his icy blue eyes I've not seen before, and not seen since. It's a longing to be back at war. It's a determination to relive those moments that keep him up at night. But it's also a pride in that he's finally been able to acknowledge something that has been staring at him all along and give words to his feelings.

For the span of a heartbeat, I am simultaneously terrified and awestruck that anyone would want to go back to the reason they were in therapy. And yet something in that look says that it's exactly what he needs.

He's a soldier. And soldiers need a mission.

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A loud crack comes from the cricket pitch, and immediately, a firm red cricket ball is sent soaring out into the bleachers by a hell of a hit from Isiat, who takes off at a sprint in his full head to toe sport whites, the shin pads on his legs flapping about as awkwardly as the helmet covering his face.

“Run!" The shout spurs Eyesah into action on the other end of the pitch, but at this point, everyone has almost stopped to watch the ball as it bounces the wire fence on the edge of the field, rolling off into the carpark nearby.

“Oh, come on! Six and out Izzy, I'm not getting that!" Parker protests, but the dragon is already hauling himself over the barrier to go and retrieve their ball. It's a Sunday on the tail end of summer, and the crew and their women have gathered at the local park for a get-together. This is the third ball Isiat has launched into the outfield, and the others are growing 'Real sick of his shit', as Victor so elegantly put it.

I'm standing on the opposite side of the outfield, where there's less action. Eyesah is standing nearby while I take these notes on a paper pad.

“You know he's going back, right?" Eyesah comments offhandedly, referring to their upcoming job assignment with Omega Risk Assessment, the joint company that almost to a man, whom they now are gainfully employed by.

I tell him I have not, and he laughs, shaking his head. Parker has finally retrieved the ball and promptly tripped over the boundary rope coming back onto the field. The rest of the lads are having a good laugh at his misfortune. Parker doesn't seem to find it quite as funny.

“It's not a big job. Just some sales and part of the larger contract distributing voting ballots. We go in, hand them off to the local ANA. Jobs done. Home for dinner. Maybe two or three weeks at most." The vulpine mentions casually, but something in his words catches me.

“We?" I ask the pointed question.

“Well, you wanted to tell the story, and honestly… All of us want to go back again, even for a little while… Did you know Isiat almost shot himself in his bathroom? Parker considered jumping off a bridge. I stood on railway lines. Victor drank himself into a stupor for a while… We're all fucked up. Isiat at least has managed to get his shit back on track, but the rest of us?" He pauses, gesturing out to the other players on the field.

“Nah… We left the world we understand back over there. Honestly, I'm looking forward to it, even just a short stay… You should come with. I'm pretty sure Scion expects you to. He purchased 8 sets of gear after all, along with some flashy white 'PRESS' patches…"

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Perhaps it's the silence in this place that is most stunning this about it. A small patch of the countryside as unassuming as any other on our small island home.

And yet, there's something here that draws them, not just the final resting places of their lost comrades. It's morning. It's cold, and it's wet, but that's England summed up in a single sentence.

Yet it's none of that that has brought them to the small cemetery. There's something in the air, like a whisper of legends, of heroes of old, of something greater.

It's devastatingly honourable. Worthy of repetition. Unquestionably powerful in its worth. It's joyous. It's tragic. It's soft-spoken like the whispered prayers over a fresh casket and resonates with the force of a drill sergeant waking cadets at the crack of dawn.

It's a story. Perhaps not a happy one, I know, as I watch the group of friends sitting by a pair of marble-topped headstones, laughing and sharing a last drink with their friends before they ship out once more to their next battlefields.

But it's a story that deserves to be told. There's a lesson in there somewhere I'm sure, and what I've learned talking and spending time with these men who I now consider friends shows that, and yet, I'm still not sure it's a lesson one can easily put into words. Just as honour, courage and Valor can be described easy enough, they're impossible to truly understand without experiencing them for oneself. I'm sure I would be writing for a long while if I were to attempt to describe the shared experience of this small band of brothers.

All of these men have lived, loved, and lost in equal measure, and somehow still have the strength in their spirits to get up each day and face whatever is next on the agenda. I feel a certain admiration for them, gratefulness and a sense of awe. After all, each of their characters and personalities seems larger than life once you know them and their deeds. But in no way do I envy the burden each has had heaped upon him.

As I watch, Isiat reaches into his breast pocket and pulls free a pair of bronze crosses, simple things on a red fabric strip. They're replicas, of course, but the gesture is no less significant to these men. Without a word, he sets the Victoria Cross on each of the headstones. He's made his opinion adamantly clear on his feelings for the medal that was awarded to him, and just who it should have gone to.

As one, they rise, standing and stretching. Mack chuckles at a quiet joke, and there's a short round of laughter through the group. 

Isiat's icy blue eyes pierce me once more, with the same sort of intensity as his gaze at the memorial service, what seems like a lifetime ago, when I first met the many-tailed vulpine and embarked on this project. It's a startling firmness, yet his narrowed pupils hold a softness that seems out of place on such a defined soldiers figure. It's the gaze of the warrior-prophet, and perhaps, to a degree, all of the war-weary soldiers share it.

This is important. 

Watch. Learn. Remember this, they say. 

Remember them.