Saturday marks ten years since the end of British combat operations in Afghanistan – a conflict in which 457 British soldiers were killed. BBC News spoke to the mother of Pte Gregg Stone, who was shot dead during a rescue mission in Helmand province in June 2012.
Cry for yourself, my man
You will never be what is in your heart
Cry, little lion man
You are not as brave as you were in the beginning.
“I had to fight back tears when I heard that song on the car radio yesterday,” says Angie Moore.
Her son Gregg Stone, 20, idolized Mumford & Sons, she explains. And the 2009 song, Little Lion Man, was a favorite.
Gregg’s big sister, Jennie, had booked tickets to see them in concert when he came home on leave from Helmand province.
Neither sibling would see the tape. Gregg would never hold his daughter either.
On June 3, 2012, Gregg, from 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, was shot and killed while trying to free an Afghan police officer who had been kidnapped by Taliban fighters.
At the time of his death, his wife and high school sweetheart Samantha was expecting their first child.
As the family tried to cope with the loss of Gregg, they suffered further heartbreak when mother-of-one Jennie, 28, was killed in a car crash near Bridlington, East Yorkshire, on February 18, 2013.
Mrs. Moore, 68, searches for words to express the enormity of the loss.
“It was a nightmare to lose Gregg, but to lose Jennie eight months later, it was… unbelievable,” she says.
“Every morning I woke up and thought I dreamed it. Today things would be different. But things were never different. It was a nightmare and some days it still is.
“I still put this mask on. Some days it fits better than others. There will be a record and I will think about them.
“There are all kinds of triggers. Photos. When I go somewhere, I remember Jennie doing this, Gregg doing that. But luckily most of them are happy memories.”
Mrs Moore raised Gregg, Jennie and her four other children in Atwick, near the East Yorkshire seaside town of Hornsea, where Gregg’s name is recorded on the war memorial.
She feels that Afghanistan is being forgotten.
“People don’t remember,” Ms. Moore says. “The world is forgetting.”
She now lives near Scarborough, but still has a view of the North Sea.
Outside is a bench dedicated to “Jennie Wren” — the family’s pet name for her daughter — where Mrs. Moore often sits to reflect and revisit memories of happier times.
Inside hang Pte Stone’s army dog tags – the identification discs he was wearing when he died.
His Afghanistan medals and photos are on a cabinet, with a picture of a wren on the wall.
“Afghanistan changed us,” Ms. Moore admits. “We all became different people. Me especially. I became empty. Not whole. Like a part of me was missing.
‘It was divisive. Some of these have been repaired, others have not. I guess we like to blame it on other things, but we all changed when we lost Gregg and Jennie.
“We are a puzzle and there will always be a piece missing. It will never be complete.”
Ten years ago, when the end of British combat operations was announced, a BBC poll found that 68% of respondents did not think involvement was worth it.
In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of the country after the US announced the final withdrawal of troops.
Ms Moore listens to those who criticize the sending of British troops to Afghanistan.
But she says, “Gregg emailed me from Shaparak [a checkpoint in Nahr-e Saraj].
“He said, ‘Mom, if anyone tells you we can’t be here, don’t pay attention.
“Gregg told me those people were living horrible lives. ‘We’re doing fine,’ he told me. That came from the horse’s mouth, so I’m not going to let anyone tell me we shouldn’t have been there.”
Mrs. Moore looks at a clock on the wall, which has a photo of her son in uniform on a union flag. It is the same image as the one released upon his death.
“What hurts me is when people say it was a waste of time,” she says. “That’s like saying my son died in vain, that it was a waste of time that his life was taken from him.
“It wasn’t a waste of time. Maybe things have turned around and aren’t much better. But for a while they were. For a while they made progress.
“My son’s life wasn’t wasted at all. He knew what he was doing. He knew why he was there.”
The clock shows 11:00 am. Gregg looks stern.
“That’s really not Gregg,” says Mrs. Moore, laughing. “It’s the only photo of Gregg I’ve seen where he’s not smiling.”
It was the “death photo,” she explains.
“Photos were taken of all soldiers before they were deployed, in case they died.”
Mrs. Moore says her son was a “comedian.”
“He was my laughing boy,” she says. “He smiled all the time. He joked about everything. He found fun in everything. He loved to entertain people. He was annoying.”
“But he was a funny kid, very empathetic. Very mature in many ways. Very immature in many other ways. He was a good kid and he became a very nice man.”
And he would have been a great father, his mother says.
‘Gregg was looking forward to becoming a father. It was all he talked about when he was there [in Afghanistan]. He told everyone.”
Coping with her loss was difficult.
“You get through because you have to,” she says, looking out to sea.
‘You have no choice. You have to get through it for the rest of your family and for your own sanity.
“But you don’t have to let it define you. I don’t like being known as Angie, the woman who lost two children. I am me. Yes, I have lost two children, but I am myself. “
With Remembrance Day approaching, Ms Moore has a simple message: “Remember everyone, from every conflict, from every country – every son, every daughter, every man, every woman. It’s not just about the First and Second World Wars.”
Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslook at the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should cover here.
