‘There was no way we were ever going to make a real difference’
JUST six weeks before James Prosser died, story left, another 21-yearold Welsh soldier suffered the same fate. The circumstances surrounding their deaths are strikingly similar.
Private Richard Hunt was driving a Warrior vehicle in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on Thursday, August 13, 2009. He had driven over an explosive device less than two days earlier, but on that occasion he escaped injury, as the IED only managed to damage one of the tank’s wheels.
On that fateful Thursday, however, another hidden device would rip through the tank, and through the lives of the Hunt family in Abergavenny. He was the 200th British soldier to die in Afghanistan and 254 other deaths followed.
“He was a designated sniper, not a driver,” said Richard’s mother, Hazel Hunt.
“He was a qualified driver too, and as the soldier who was meant to be driving had been sick, Richard took over. I remember him joking to me, ‘The buggers have got me driving now’.
“On that day, they had to drive through some abandoned compounds, and Richard started to make his way through. His was the 15th vehicle to drive over the explosive device, which had been buried in the ground.
“It ripped his seat off its anchors. He had the hood down to protect him from sniper fire and after the explosion they managed to get the hood off quickly to see if Richard was still breathing. He was.
“He was flown by helicopter to a hospital over there and the doctors were able to stabilise him. He was then flown home to a hospital in Birmingham, which is were we met him.
“The doctors told us straight away that there was nothing they could do. It was just a matter of time. But we managed to spend four precious hours with him.
“At 2.15pm on Saturday, August 15, my son died. He would have been 22 the following week.”
Richard grew up on a farm, and when he was a very young boy he would always be found outside, playing, and he was “very much into tractors”.
As he got a bit older it was clear that he would, one day, make a career for himself in the forces, such was his penchant for the outdoors and adventure.
“From the age of seven or eight he was always playing soldiers. He just loved being outdoors so from a certain point I think he knew that he wanted to be in the Army,” Mrs Hunt said.
“Richard was dyslexic so he hated sitting down and reading – he wanted to be outside, all the time. He seemed to enjoy the challenge – the colder and the wetter it was, the more he enjoyed it. When he was training in the Brecon Beacons, in the months leading up to him travelling to Afghanistan, he would come home and sleep here.
“His boots would be soaked through and I would have to wring them out every night and stuff paper into them, then leave them next to the heater and hope they would be fine for the next day.
“He loved the job for the most part. It became his home. The last phone call I got from Richard he was chuffed to bits because he was one of four snipers on a patrol. He was made up because he had his rifle and a hand revolver. So he was prepared, there’s no doubt.
“I don’t think it was a case of a lack of equipment. It was strategy. They should have had helicopters checking that area instead of letting soldiers go in on the ground, driving over it.”
Mrs Hunt set up a charity – Welsh Warrior, The Richard Hunt Foundation – in the aftermath of her son’s death. It ran for eight years and raised around £350,000.
The charity helped countless soldiers and their families when they needed help the most.
“Our mantra was we would never leave people waiting. There are a lot of charities that do great work for our soldiers but at times it can take a while for people to get the help they need, so we made it our goal to help people and to help them as quickly as we possibly could.”
Like so many other bereaved parents, Mrs Hunt’s heartache is coupled with anger. It doesn’t eat her up, however. She says she needs it, as it allows her to move on with her life and do some good.
“My emotions go backwards and forwards,” she said. “The anger is there but it’s the anger that enables you to be able to talk to people and do things. I like talking to people about Richard, but I hate talking to politicians. They just have this attitude. They say sorry but it’s like they’re patting you on the head when they’re saying it.
“The only person in Parliament who talks any sense about soldiers is Johnny Mercer, the MP for Plymouth, and you know why? He’s a former soldier, so he knows. All the others do is come out with words but take no action.
“At the end of the day, we haven’t achieved anything in Afghanistan. There may be a few more schools over there and certain things may be a little better, but I hear the news on the radio all the time about things that are still going on in Afghanistan. It makes you realise that nothing has really changed. The Afghan culture is so different to ours. Who are we to tell them how to behave? We should never have gone there at all.”
Mrs Hunt lays the blame for going there squarely at the door of one man.
“It saddens me that we have lost so many good people, and if I ever saw Tony Blair I would just ask him, ‘Why?’
“Why did he agree to go into Iraq with George Bush, which in turn made the situation in Afghanistan far worse than it ever was? Nobody has ever made a success of invading Afghanistan. Even Russia, with all their might. There was no way that we were ever going to make a real difference.”
With the 10th anniversary of Richard’s death coming up in less than a month, Mrs Hunt admits some days are better than others.
Some days are filled with deep sorrow, others are filled with happiness and laughter, but even then, that heartache is there. It might have been forced with all her strength to the back of her mind, but it’s there, and will remain there for the rest of her life.
“People say, ‘You’re brave’ or ‘You’re strong’ but you have to be. You have to be for the sake of your family. You have to get on with things because the world does not stop.
“People ask, ‘If there was one thing in the whole world you could have, what would it be?’
“I don’t want anything, because the thing I want is the one thing I can’t have.”