Missing in bandit country

MISSING Newry South Armagh 1977 From my book “The Unnamed Soldiers”

On one occasion the whole company were on the ground, we were doing a sweep of a set area looking for hidden weapons, bomb making equipment etc.

We were dropped off and picked up by chopper, by late afternoon we were all back safe in our base chilling and pissing around watching TV and eating. Just then I said has any one seen.... We soon realised one of our bloke’s was missing, we’d left him out there somewhere in bandit country.

I don’t have to tell you how serious that was and the shit hit the fan big time, 30 minutes later the whole company were back out on the ground looking for him. Later that evening the message was he was safe. The story goes that there were that many squaddies out on the ground that day, in the confusion when the choppers were picking everyone up, he got left behind, he said he waited for about an hour then realised there were no choppers coming back and he was on his own.

He walked for a few miles until he came to 2 semi-detached farm houses he knocked on the door of one of them, when they answered he pointed his weapon at them and told them he needed to use their phone, luckily he chose the right house, in the other house lived known IRA sympathisers, he was a very lucky chap.

A few years later he was out of the army and came over to Germany for a holiday. I remember he knocked on my door at stupid o’clock in the morning. I opened the door and the first thing he said was I’m a British soldier and I need to use your phone. I rolled up with laughter, he stayed with us for a few days met up with some of his old army buddies and went back home. He became a post man in civvy street, so he ended up going up to peoples doors he didn’t know for a living.

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