Honouring the soldiers

This morning, while most of London rushed to work, a few hundred soldiers stood silently in the scorching sun of the Iraqi desert, as the names of their fallen comrades were read out. All 234 of them; 179 British and 46 allied soldiers. The Reverend Paschal Hanrahan led the prayers and said something which I found profoundly moving. I haven’t been able to find the exact quote, but (from memory) it went something like:

“It is to the solder to whom we owe the right to free trial, not the lawyer; it is the soldier, not the journalist, who guarantees the freedom of speech; and it is the soldier, who serves under the flag and whose coffin is draped in the flag, who gives us the right to protest, who gives even the right to protesters to burn that same flag.”