Heads Up - Tonight BBC2 8pm - Journey in the Danger Zone : Iraq Part I BBC Two
Episode 1 Adnan Sarwar returns to Iraq where he served in 2003 as an IED operator.
What next for Iraq? Former British soldier Adnan Sarwar returns 15 years after fighting Saddam Hussein
'' My return to Iraq at the age of 39 also represented a chance to answer some burning personal questions. I left the Royal Engineers after a decade of service. But I then spent years dreaming about the soldier I’d once been, digging trenches in the midday sun wearing a chemical suit while being bombed by Saddam. I missed it.
When I reported on the foreigners joining the Kurdish fighters, part of me longed to be fighting alongside them. In 2003, I was a lance corporal deployed in Basra with bomb-disposal teams from the Army, RAF and Royal Navy. I feel differently about the war today, but it was the most exciting time of my life.
How did it feel being a Muslim in the British Army? I’m Pakistani, I’m from Burnley, I’m British. I was racially abused at school, but I left those idiots behind when I joined up. I wanted adventure but I also got a set of friends with whom I went through danger, and we became very close. ''
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" We thought we were helping Iraq. To those who protested our presence, I say it wasn’t British soldiers who decided to invade Iraq, it was the UK government. Much later, when people would ask me what Iraq was like and what difference we had made out there, I realised I couldn’t answer the question.
Worse, I wondered if I was just one of many British, Americans and other foreign powers who had broken the country further. So I read up about Iraq’s troubled history and the war that began in 2003 (since that year, it’s estimated that about 200,000 Iraqis have been killed in conflict). When I was offered the chance to return to the country, I grabbed it, with hope – and apprehension."
Episode 1 Adnan Sarwar returns to Iraq where he served in 2003 as an IED operator.
What next for Iraq? Former British soldier Adnan Sarwar returns 15 years after fighting Saddam Hussein
'' My return to Iraq at the age of 39 also represented a chance to answer some burning personal questions. I left the Royal Engineers after a decade of service. But I then spent years dreaming about the soldier I’d once been, digging trenches in the midday sun wearing a chemical suit while being bombed by Saddam. I missed it.
When I reported on the foreigners joining the Kurdish fighters, part of me longed to be fighting alongside them. In 2003, I was a lance corporal deployed in Basra with bomb-disposal teams from the Army, RAF and Royal Navy. I feel differently about the war today, but it was the most exciting time of my life.
How did it feel being a Muslim in the British Army? I’m Pakistani, I’m from Burnley, I’m British. I was racially abused at school, but I left those idiots behind when I joined up. I wanted adventure but I also got a set of friends with whom I went through danger, and we became very close. ''
--
" We thought we were helping Iraq. To those who protested our presence, I say it wasn’t British soldiers who decided to invade Iraq, it was the UK government. Much later, when people would ask me what Iraq was like and what difference we had made out there, I realised I couldn’t answer the question.
Worse, I wondered if I was just one of many British, Americans and other foreign powers who had broken the country further. So I read up about Iraq’s troubled history and the war that began in 2003 (since that year, it’s estimated that about 200,000 Iraqis have been killed in conflict). When I was offered the chance to return to the country, I grabbed it, with hope – and apprehension."
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