Message from the Colonel

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On a wet day early in 1975, with the wind howling across the open expanses of this once American air base, now home to the Army’s Queen Division, I stood in the corridor outside the Commanding officer’s office and waited. My features were a mask as I tried to hide the fear that ran to my very core. The weather that morning matched my situation perfectly. Wearing my khaki no 2 dress, the white chevrons of my rank stood out on both upper arms, while the ribbon of my General Service Medal added a splash of colour to the dullness of the uniform. As no charges had yet been laid against me, I was allowed to wear my beret, with its distinctive red and white hackle (plume) of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. My whole world had collapsed around me as my worst nightmare had finally come true. The fear that had haunted me for the past twelve years had at last caught up with me, and it was all my own fault. I’d inflicted a huge, gaping wound on myself, in an act of the most extraordinary madness or was it desperation?