From the Telegraph on line:
By Bob Graham
Published: 9:03PM BST 23 Sep 2009
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Sgt Michael Lockett was killed by a roadside bomb Photo: PA
On Armistice Day for the past two years a text message arrived with the simple phrase: " 'We WILL Remember Them', best wishes, Locky." The four simple words, from Laurence Binyon's First World War poem, went out to all those on the mobile phone list of Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett. The message said it all as far as Locky was concerned. He would not, could not, forget his mates, and he wanted everyone he knew to remember them, too.
I first met Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett and the surviving men from his platoon in the heat and dust of Helmand, in the aftermath of the battle on September 8, 2007 that claimed the lives of two of their colleagues and left five more injured.They were young men who had endured the worst the Taliban could throw at them, having spent weeks under fire at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delhi, the southern-most British base in Helmand. Over many hours we sat drinking tea and replaying the events that had taken place the night before, occasionally interrupted as the younger soldiers approached and sought fatherly advice from Lockett, himself just 27 at the time. Nearly all asked Locky what they should do, how they should feel. He treated each with a kind word and gentle advice; for some an arm around the shoulder, for others a bit of soldiering banter.
Over the next year or so, I met Lockett and spoke to him further: he was proud, humbled and perhaps even a little embarrassed by the Military Cross he was awarded as a result of that battle. But the image of Locky that sticks in my mind is not the haunting picture of him receiving his medal from the Queen – a dignified moment he would have treasured – but of him sitting in the shade of a tent, beating himself up for the death of Sgt Craig Brelsford, who died trying to recover the body of Pte Johan Botha from the battlefield.
Locky was Army born and bred. He lived and breathed it, trusted it, and finally died for it on Monday.
That he was leading his platoon of the 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment on a foot patrol, on his third tour in Afghanistan, when he was killed by a roadside bomb was no surprise. Locky would not ask anyone to do what he would not do himself, and invariably that meant he led from the front.
Acting Sgt Michael Lockett is the first holder of the MC to die in battle since the Second World War. At the time, he was preparing the young soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment who had just arrived in Helmand to replace Locky's boys.
During our first meeting, which lasted several hours, Locky sat talking with immense pride of his Army upbringing. His father Malcolm still serves with 225 General Support Medical, and his mother April was formerly with the Royal Military Police. "I love the Army," he said, his smiling face still caked with the dust and sand from the battlefield. There was not an ounce of cynicism or regret in his statement, just an acceptance that the night before, being in the Army had cost the lives of two of his closest friends and left five more probably disabled for the rest of their lives.
That didn't stop him feeling anger for what had taken place. During the ambush by the Taliban, firing wave after wave of machine-gun fire and RPGs, he heard over his radio that five of his men had gone down, all within a few yards of where the Taliban were hiding. In the darkness, he and several of the survivors from the Mercians' 'A' Company crawled to the ditch to help organise a group to rescue the injured, who still lay in the open field.
Locky could hear in his ear-piece the pleas of one of his injured soldiers, Private Luke Cole. "He kept saying over and over 'Mick, come and get me….Mick, come and get me.e_SSRq" It was a plea that went to the core of everything Locky had told his men. "Before we came out to Afghanistan on this tour," he said, "I promised my men that as platoon sergeant I'd bring them back, if not alive, then their bodies would come home. That was my line in the sand, no matter what happened, everyone was coming back. And in that situation, if it meant going back into the face of enemy fire, I didn't give a rat's ass about what it took, I wanted my men back. We would not leave anyone behind."
He asked for volunteers to accompany him into the 'killing zone' to rescue their fallen comrades, an action that resulted in all four of those who went being awarded medals for bravery.
Privately, in the months that followed, there were many who believed that at least two VCs should have been awarded for the bravery shown that night, including one to Locky. That the ultimate medal of bravery was not given was a decision not based on deed, rather on the accepted political expediency that what happens in battle is not always reflected in the byzantine corridors of Whitehall.
Locky and his small squad of volunteers managed to rescue five of their colleagues, but could not find Private Botha, a South African who was one of the most popular members of the platoon.
The platoon commander, Lt Simon Cupples, asked for reinforcements to try to reach Botha, and a second platoon, led by Sgt Brelsford, was nearby. Locky added: "When we asked for volunteers Brellsie stepped forward. It was like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan. I simply grabbed him and whispered in his ear: 'Brellsie, I need you to go and get the big man for me.' He understood.
"His last words to me were: 'Mick, no dramas, don't worry about it, don't worry'. And I wasn't worried, Brellsie was leading one of our own platoons and he was going to get our boy out there. He'd come to help us when we needed him."
In the ensuing battle, Sgt Brelsford was killed and the company commanding officer, Maj Jamie Nowell, decided to withdraw the soldiers to base and use heavily armoured vehicles to go in search of Botha's body. But Locky had other ideas. "I was having none of it. I asked for more volunteers to go and get Botha back. Every hand went up again, no hesitation."
In stepped Lt Cupples to repeat the order to return to base. "I refused. I was not leaving my man on the ground, it was breaking my heart. I didn't know if Botha was dead or alive – although in my eyes he was not dead, he was missing in action. I sat there crying, knowing this was to be the hardest decision in my life, to extract from the battlefield and leave my man there." Eventually, he agreed to return to the base. But he added: "I could not look at the other lads when we went in ... I thought I'd lost their trust."
The following day, during our interview, Locky kept going over in his mind what more he could have done to brief his fellow sergeant. "Did I do enough, did I give him enough info? Could I have done more, acted differently and he wouldn't have been hit? Is it my fault? That's what's going on in my head now."
It was a question Locky still had not answered when we met in Chesterfield many months later. In the period that followed the Mercians' return to the UK, Locky spent much of his time with the young family he adored: his girlfriend Belinda and three children, Connor, Chloe and Courtney.
He also ensured that every member of his platoon took time to visit their injured colleagues in hospitals in various parts of the country. "We will remember them," he said time and again, emphasising that "they were part of us in battle and they're part of us now. Their battle is different and it's our duty to help them through it."
The plight of Pte Sam Cooper, who was severely injured and in Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabiliation Centre in Surrey, was of particular concern and Locky ensured that a constant stream of his fellow soldiers attended his bedside.
When I next saw Locky it was in a pub in Chesterfield in March 2008, on the day the Mercians were awarded the freedom of the city. Locky was on leave at the time but drove up to Derbyshire from his home in Devizes to push the wheelchair of Sam Cooper, who had just been released from hospital.
As we stood in a city centre pub at lunchtime, waiting for a small parade of the Mercian soldiers to begin, a group of young men were knocking back pints and generally ridiculing the soldiers who stood in ranks outside in their uniform.
Locky went over and spoke to them, explaining that the soldiers were "ordinary young men, just like you, they have the same dreams, desires and interests as you ... They're doing an extraordinary job for their country, not because they want to but because their government, your government, has asked them to." The group listened to Locky and when he finished, each of the drinkers put down their glasses and shook him by the hand, apologising for their earlier rudeness.
Later, as Locky pushed Cooper in his wheelchair to a reception at the Civic Centre, he was stopped by a couple of mothers who wanted to tell him how proud they felt of his sacrifice. One of the mothers described how she despaired of her son's bad behaviour and failure to get a job. Locky gave her his telephone number and said: "If I didn't have the Army, I'd probably be like him. It's my best friend, it provides me with friendships that will last for ever. It's not easy but its qualities will last with me for ever. If he wants, tell him to call me and I'll have a chat."
Months later, it was announced that Locky had been awarded the MC, as had his dead comrade Sgt Brelsford. He was sanguine about the medal: "Of course it's an honour and I shall wear it with pride," he said. "But attached to it are the memories of Brellsie and Botha, two mates and no matter what the medal says, it can't bring them back.
"In some ways handing out medals is not part of what I'm about or what my mates in the platoon are about. Everything we do, we do together and for each other."
