Military veterans have shared what Remembrance means to them on a special podcast today – including Prince Harry and an army captain from North Yorkshire who survived being shot in Afghanistan.
The Declassified Podcast talks to many within the military community about the reality of the 11th of November and what it really means to remember.
Among them is the Duke of Sussex who says of this year’s more muted commemorations: “Even when we can’t all be together, we always remember together”.
Another of those talking to podcast host Michael Coates is David Wiseman.
David, from Tadcaster, was serving in Afghanistan with the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment when he was shot in the chest by the Taliban during a firefight.
The bullet went through his lung and lodged in his back, missing a major artery and nerve by a few millimetres.
‘I’ve been there and I remember them’
David was a Invictus Games UK team captain in 2016 and co-founded the CASEVAC Club for those seriously wounded in combat during recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He told the podcast what he thinks about on Remembrance Day
“I think about people I’ve known, who’ve served and who’ve fallen, either those that I met through training, soldiers that I’ve trained as an instructor, or obviously those those I’ve served alongside in battalion.
“But then, I also think of the violence and the death that I’ve experienced and I’ve witnessed firsthand.
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“And unfortunately, those are all all too easy to remember, the men who’ve passed. I’ve been there and I remember them; I remember them in death.
“I also think of people who’ve become my very close friends who’ve been severely wounded in in war. Those who have sacrificed their health, they’ve sacrificed their youth, they’ve sacrificed things that that most people take for granted.”
He also urges “parents, teachers or people with influence” to ensure that that “the act of remembrance is preserved and its gravitas is felt by generations to come”.
Prince Harry speaks of his own service on Declassified: “When I get asked about this period of my life I draw from memories, I draw from what I remember and who I remember.
“Like the first time we were shot at and who I was with, the first casualties we saw, and those we saved.
“And the first medivac we escorted out of contact in a race against time. One served always serving, no matter what.”