Impact investigations reporter Stephen Stewart explains how he was embedded alongside Inverness-based British troops from Dundee, Fife, Angus and the Highlands as they battled the Taliban in the badlands of Afghanistan.
But his journalistic mission to the front line altered the course of his life. He gave up his job as a senior newspaper reporter to join the British Army full time before deploying to Afghanistan himself as a combat infantryman.
Here he tells how he immersed himself in the campaign, going from civilian to soldier, to get a unique perspective on one of the world’s longest running conflicts. He served six-and-a-half months at the most remote British base in Afghanistan during some key final stages in the campaign.
He discusses the sacrifices made and in this new series – Afghanistan: Scotland’s Forgotten War – he examines how some families will forever pay the price of those battles in Helmand and Kandahar, which are in danger of slipping from our collective memory as the British campaign ends.
Scotland’s Forgotten War
Scotland’s Forgotten War is an in-depth investigation into one of the country’s longest running conflicts – the campaign in Afghanistan – and how it forever changed our local families and communities.
From Dundee, Angus and Fife to Aberdeen, Inverness and the Highlands, the combat thousands of miles away in Afghanistan has cast a long shadow over people’s lives in the last 20 years.
Read the full series:
- ‘I’ll see you on the other side’: How fallen Fife soldier Liam Tasker described his “fantastic life” in a letter written for his family in event of his death
- ‘What was my son killed for?’: Mother of tragic Fife soldier Liam Tasker fears her son’s sacrifice will be forgotten
- Grieving mother of Fife soldier Sean Binnie hopes son’s death will not be for nothing as troops leave Afghanistan
- Black Watch soldier relives day his friend Sean Binnie was killed in Afghan firefight
- Grandmother of Dundee soldier killed in Afghanistan says British troops ‘should never have been there in the first place’
- Dundee soldier left with shrapnel in his head after grenade attack in Afghanistan
- Mother of combat medic ‘angel’ Channing Day says too many lives have been lost in Afghanistan conflict
- Medals belonging to Perthshire soldier seriously injured in Afghanistan find new home at military museum
- The Royal Regiment of Scotland: A history of Scotland’s super regiment
The Impact team
- Words by Stephen Stewart
- Design by Cheryl Livingstone
- Graphics by Roddie Reid
- Photographs, video and audio by Jason Hedges, Mhairi Edwards, Drew Farrell, Blair Dingwall and Morven McIntyre.