A Message from the Falklands [pb] David Tinker

Amazon review

A  poignant view of the Falklands war by a man who died in it, 7 Nov 1998

The fighting in the Falklands tends to be referred to as a 'conflict', disguising the fact that for those who took part it was as unpleasant as any other war. David Tinker was a young man who emerges from the book as someone I would have liked to count among my friends. He comes to life in the first part of the book talking about his youth and his first years in the Navy, something that is made all the more poignant by the knowledge that he was killed in the Falklands and the book contains his last letters.

I was moved by the letters he wrote on his way to the fighting, particularly by the way he describes his increasing awareness that the task force is in deadly earnest. As they leave, he seems to be carried along by the excitement of the whole adventure. As the ships get closer, his letters reveal a growing realisation that this is not a game. This is particularly striking when he describes his first experiences under fire - having always been trained never to turn a loaded gun on another man, he finds himself wanting to shout to the Argentinian pilots to be careful, they are using live ammunition - someone could get hurt.

A powerful and touching personal account of war by a man who gave his life to it, underlining not just the cruelty of war in general but the strange values that gave rise to this one in particular.