Iraq War: My son died in Basra in 2004 - it feels like yesterday
- Published
"I just told his Dad: 'Gordon is not coming back.'"
It's almost 19 years since teenage soldier Gordon Gentle was killed in Iraq - but his mother says it feels like yesterday.
The Fusilier, from Pollok, Glasgow, was killed by a roadside bomb while on routine patrol in Basra on 28 June 2004.
His mother, Rose Gentle, spoke to BBC Scotland's The Nine to mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the conflict.
Gordon, who was 19, was one of 179 UK servicemen and women who died during the campaign which followed the invasion.
Ms Gentle went on to become a fierce critic of the war.
"It does not seem like 20 years. Time has just flew by but, for us, it is just like yesterday," she said.
Fusilier Gordon Gentle was posted to Iraq just weeks after completing his training in 2004
Ms Gentle said Gordon joined the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers after struggling to find a job.
And on the day he passed out in May 2004 she was told he would be sent to Iraq the following month.
When Ms Gentle saw on the news that a British soldier had been killed, she was certain it wasn't her only son as she hadn't heard anything.
A few hours later she was at work when an army liaison officer arrived to speak to her.
Ms Gentle said: "The first thing I says to him was 'What has he done?' because Gordon was a climber. He had probably injured himself or something.
"And he went: 'Really there no other way to tell you, Rose, but Gordon has been killed.'
"I just remember coming out of the car screaming 'It'll not be Gordon. It can't be Gordon. It's not true'."
After she was driven home Ms Gentle had to phone Gordon's father George before collecting his older sister Pamela, then 21, from work.
Later as family and friends gathered at the house, Ms Gentle admitted: "It did not feel real."
Hundreds of mourners attended Gordon's funeral at St James' Parish Church in Pollok during which Church of Scotland minister Dr John Mann spoke of his anger at politicians who had led the country into war
Just weeks earlier Gordon had completed his training at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, North Yorkshire.
Ms Gentle said: "When I saw him in his passing out parade with that uniform I said 'Look how proud he looks' and we were really proud of him."
That day they learned he was going to be posted to Iraq and were given the date.
Ms Gentle said: "The first thing I said was 'He can't because that is the day of my 40th birthday'."
In the weeks that followed they watched unfolding events in Iraq with concern before Gordon left Scotland for the last time.
Residents fleeing the city of Basra during the first month of the conflict
Ms Gentle said: "The day we left him at the train station I knew. Something just told me.
"I just told his Dad: 'Gordon is not coming back.'
"I don't know why but I just had that feeling."
The last contact Ms Gentle had with her son was a call from the conflict zone.
She said: "He phoned on the Friday and got killed on the Monday.
"It was not as if he had much time to tell us what was happening there. That was last phone call. First and last phone call."
Ms Gentle became one of the most outspoken critics of the UK government's handling of the war and set up Military Families Against the War and Justice 4 Gordon Gentle.
Rose Gentle outside the High Court in London in August 2005 as the families of 17 soldiers killed in Iraq launched a bid to secure an independent inquiry into the lawfulness of the conflict
During her campaign for answers from the UK government, Ms Gentle contested the 2005 general election against then armed forces minister Adam Ingram in East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow but lost out.
She met then prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, having had a number of meeting requests with his predecessor Tony Blair turned down.
In 2007 an inquest into Fusilier Gentle's death heard that the bomb would probably not have detonated had electronic disabling equipment been fitted to his vehicle.
The equipment was available but had been left in a store under a mile away because of a clerical error.
Ms Gentle said she also felt vindicated by the 2016 Chilcot report, external.
It concluded Mr Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had "wholly inadequate" plans for the aftermath.
After the report was published Mr Blair apologised for any mistakes made but not the decision to go to war.
Ms Gentle said: "I still feel like I did 19 years ago that Gordon should never have been there and there is only one person to blame for his death."
Tony Blair said that although mistakes had been made, the decision to join the US-led invasion had been the right one
In 2017 her campaigning work was recognised with an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow.
Had he lived, Gordon would now have been approaching middle age but Ms Gentle only has memories of a mischievous boy whose favourite meal was sausage and chips.
She said: "If you looked for him we just looked up the nearest tree and that was Gordon up a tree.
"The older he got him and his pals built a shed and that why he got the nickname The Shed Head.
"The boys would stay in that shed all weekend rather than walk about the streets."
Ms Gentle also said her son enjoyed winding up his two sisters.
She added: "I never, ever, had any bother with him."
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- Published7 July 2016
