Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Official Report 666KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. I remind members to leave their voting cards firmly in place. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev John Chalmers, principal clerk of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

“They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old”.

Those words that call us to remembrance will mean so much more to me this year, because on 27 May two Royal Marines from 42 Commando and their Afghan interpreter were killed by an improvised explosive device in Helmand province. Our youngest son and another young man from his troop were next in the line of the blast and were repatriated two days later-–just clinging on to life. That weekend, the phrase “the family has been informed” took on a very different meaning for us.

This year the poppy has a new depth of meaning. In fact I have learned new things about the poppy, which until now was always just associated with Flanders fields. In serving in Helmand province, our servicemen and women are facing an enemy whose economy depends on the poppy that supplies 75 per cent of the world’s illegal opiate. The same opiate, however, saves the lives of those who are traumatically injured in the field. Months later, the young men and women who survive their injuries find themselves addicted to the drug—a drug that they would never otherwise have entertained as any part of their life. That is because they have needed so much morphine throughout their treatment that they have become dependent. Our injured service personnel then have to go through withdrawal symptoms.

I now know that the process of withdrawal goes deeper still as our young men and women remember the colleagues and the experiences that change their lives forever. A very high price is being paid on the battlefields of this world.

The real point of all this is to remember that the young women and men who go out to theatres of war do not choose their battles; they are servants of their Governments and they depend on folk like you making the wisest of decisions. And it is down to us—people who have power and people of good will—to find better ways than war to resolve some of the world’s most intractable problems.

The poppy that I wear this year will remind me of three men who took the full force of a blast that changed our family’s life. It will remind me of the families of those same men, because what has been a trial for us has been a tragedy for them.

I offer this prayer.

Remind us blessed God that even the smallest decisions that we make in places of power can have consequences beyond our wildest imagining. And endow us with the wisdom needed to govern with mercy, compassion and justice.

Amen.