Published: Tuesday, 11th November, 2008 09:30
Heroes are remembered
By Jamie Borthwick
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Corporal John Connell, Colour Sergeant Martin Hollern and Lance Corporal Thomas Callaghan
FROM the rocket attacks and searing heat of present-day conflicts, to thoughts of trench warfare on the Western Front, the serving soldiers from Dumbarton and the Vale come together to remember.
The Territorial Army (TA) troops at the Latta Street barracks paraded at the moving Remembrance Sunday service at Levengrove Park this weekend.
And the group, which has been in action in both Iraq and Afghanistan, also gathered to recall their own harrowing tales from the front line.
Colour Sergeant Martin Hollern, 41, has seen numerous men come and go in his 23 years in the TA, but knows many of them will come along to talk about their experiences around Remembrance Day — because they do not want to burden friends and family with the horror of their war.
Colour Sergeant Hollern, from Dumbarton, said: “Remembrance Day is an occasion when those who have left the TA come back and reminisce, tell the stories from overseas operations and everything.
“Of my group which started in 1985, I’m the only one left — but most of the boys who used to be in the TA come in so they can talk about what they saw.”
Renton man Lance Corporal John Connell, 26, agrees his civilian friends and family could not understand what he has been through, and refrains from telling them the full horrors. The fitness instructor told the Reporter: “I was on the phone to an ex-girlfriend when I was out in Iraq and during the conversation a rocket attack came into the compound.
“She was screaming down the phone to me — I just explained it was normal.
“You do it to protect them — they don’t need to know how much we see and go through.”
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders paraded for the service at Levengrove, in a poignant year marking 90 years since the Armistace of the Great War.
For the full coverage of Remembrance Day see this week's Reporter
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