Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Tony Newton posts from the UK about an early end to his deployment.

One of the things about getting older is that your parents do too. When I agreed to a six week mobilisation to Italy in support of Op ELLAMY, I knew that my father wasn’t in the best of health, but as neither family nor doctors could answer the ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question, it made sense just to get on with the deployment.

I’d agreed with my siblings that they wouldn’t withhold important information from me while I was away, and initially phone calls home confirmed that my father’s condition was stable. But a couple of weeks into my time in Gioia, the message started to change, and both my Paradigm calling card and my Vodafone inclusive minutes started to be rapidly depleted through long discussions as to how far things should be allowed to deteriorate before I ‘banged out’. We’d agreed that as different family members had different perspectives on when would be the right time to come home (if at all), we’d take a leaf out of the ‘Britain’s Got Talent ‘ book and I’d come home when each of my three siblings and my mother all individually gave me a red light.

I’d already warned my boss in Gioia’s Press Information Centre (PIC) that a compassionate problem might be looming, and had spoken informally with the A1 (administration) cell to find out how a ‘comp’ (compassionate repatriation) would work if needed. They’d both been extremely helpful and supportive, and the only ‘guilt trip’ laid on me for even thinking about returning home was of my own making.

And of course the balloon did eventually go up- and true to form it happened outside office hours, with a call from my wife to the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (known as the ‘J triple-C’). What happened next could so easily have been the stuff of farce: JCCC quite understandably called the hospital to get confirmation of my father’s medical situation. Equally understandably, the hospital refused to give out any information to this unknown third party other than that “he’s comfortable, and you can speak to the Consultant’s secretary tomorrow morning.” JCCC then called me to say that there was nothing further they could do that evening, but that they would call the hospital the next morning. In the meantime, if I could get myself home on my own initiative through the chain of command in Gioia then I should start to put the wheels in motion - all of which made me feel like a cross between a complete fraud and the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The next morning, I managed to organise a place on the afternoon Herc that would have deposited me in Brize Norton sometime around midnight (having narrowly missed the HS 125 that would have been a very fast and comfortable trip back to Northolt, albeit in less than ideal circumstances). I was settling down to trying to do a productive morning’s work when the A1 Senior Clerk walked into the PIC to announce that the JCCC had now spoken to the hospital consultant and assessed the case as a Category Alpha- defined as ’get you home as fast as possible by any possible means’. From this point on, the machine kicked into overdrive. “You’re leaving in a car for Bari airport in 45 minutes. You’re flying civair Bari to Milan, Milan to Heathrow where you’ll be met and taken direct to the hospital.”

And that’s exactly what happened. At Heathrow I was first off the aircraft and met on the air bridge by a civvy suited RAF man from Northolt with Heathrow ID who whisked me through baggage claim and immigration and into a waiting car. By 6.30 pm, I was at my father’s bedside.

The point of this piece is twofold: to thank all those at Gioia del Colle who were so helpful in getting me away (and indeed for allowing me to go at all), and to publicly acknowledge the work of the JCCC in making it all happen so quickly and so smoothly once an emergency was declared.

What worried me most about leaving theatre was the risk that people who had entrusted me (and by extension the Mobile News Team function) with their home town story might never see their name and picture in print, and never know why. Since I’ve been back, the days have revolved around hospital visits, but I’m pleased to say that I’ve now completed and delivered all the home town stories for which I’d done interviews, so honour is satisfied.