Johnny Mercer

It’s been an interesting week. I was perhaps a little too hasty to jump in the ring and conduct what I thought was a defence of values that Tom Tugendhat and I both share. I saw him condemning what we both thought were anti-Semitic remarks, made by an individual who had previously made offensive comments I could not agree with. In fact, it turned out to be poor journalism from an individual whose social media posts afterwards revealed his motives. I was too quick to respond to partial quotes and partial information spread on social media with (it translated later) malicious intent. To this day we don’t know what he said and in what context, which is the problem.

There was a commotion by the back gate. I grabbed my rifle and headed over. The week beforehand I was shooting in through the hinges at insurgents trying to over-run the base that was now my home for another hot summer in the Afghan desert. The gate was covered by a sentry. I shouted up to him. He told me there was a man at the back gate seeking medical help for something in his arms.  I opened the gate cautiously. The young Afghan man started shouting at me in Pashtun. I caught the odd word, but was comforted by the presence of my translator who had appeared behind me, having been summoned by the sentry.  The man dumped the bloody rags in his hands into my arms. I peeled them back to find a dead baby girl in my arms, her face almost entirely removed.