At today's commemoration service in St Paul's Cathedral the Nation gave thanks and paid honour to the 120,000 British servicemen and women who served in Operation Telic between 2003 and 2009.
The service also paid due honour to the sacrifice made by the 178 who gave their lives in the service of their country.
The focal point of the service was the centrepiece from the 'Basra Wall' which had been built out in Iraq by soldiers to honour their fallen comrades. It took a hard-fought campaign by the families of the fallen to get the government to eventually agree to bring the Wall home and to have it rebuilt at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The sentence engraved on the central plate from the Wall does not simply speak for those that fell but also speaks for all those who served on Operation Telic. Inscribed with lines from the Book of Wisdom:
"Honourable age does not depend on length of days, nor is the
number of years a true measure of life."
number of years a true measure of life."
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