Contact magazine is published by AFCU three times per year - Contact ISSN 1359 - 1726 - Registered Charity (No.249636) www.afcu.org.uk magazine for members of the armed forces the sound of silence - when you need to retreat Tanktastic - the truth about tanks Spring 2019 £2 Contact magazine is published by AFCU three times per year - Contact ISSN 1359 - 1726 - Registered Charity (No.249636) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5 contact 02 WHO CAN WE BELIEVE and how do we know who is telling the truth? In a world of fake news, social media rumours, espionage and political confusion it can be very hard to discern truth from fiction. After all what is true to one person may be called a lie by another. contents These questions have been whirring round as I browse the internet, flick Truth in a world Finding God in the through news pages or scroll down of fake news - Silence - ex-para social media. Sometimes it seems we’ve Tank Museum CO reflects on the become masters of personal PR, adept director quiet voice of at massaging our own image, presenting speaks on God only the good news and in that way, only war & giving the world a half truth. bravery 4 8 The Christian Director of the Tank Museum in Bovington recently made me think about truth again. Richard Smith explained how the Museum seeks to God’s disturbing Racing on with life help people learn the truth about the message about - how an RAF past, which can then inform the present strangers - corporal finds God and impact the future. a look at the on retreats ethics of The ethics article by retired Chaplain in welcome Chief (RAF), Ray Pentland, tackles the 9 10 topical issue of immigration and how we view the strangers who arrive seeking help. He asks the challenging question about what it means for us to be citizens of heaven and how that should affect the regulars way we behave towards others. As we move into a reflective time of Katie Kyle 12 year with Lent approaching, it’s an opportunity to pause and take stock. On Martin’s memo 13 pages 8 & 9 two members share how they have found silence and retreats a source of inspiration and refreshment for coffee break 14 their lives. book reviews 15 Finally, if you have any ideas for potential stories and articles from your experience caption competition 15 in the military that might be included in CONTACT magazine, I’d love to hear from you. Please contact me directly on [email protected] Have you searched for the new Rachel Farmer ‘AFCU’ app? It is in the Editor ‘app store’ or email: [email protected] you can scan this code • If you wish to know more about what it means to be a Christian and/or how to become a Christian, find and ask your local military chaplain or a Christian you Armed Forces’ Christian Union (AFCU), may know or pick up the phone and ask 3 Axis Road, Watchfield, Swindon, SN6 8SQ. Phone: +44 (0) 1793 783123 the AFCU office +44 (0)1793 783123 Email: [email protected] www.afcu.org.uk contact 03 Truth in a world of fake news The Tank Museum’s Director talks about war and truth and why works. If we’re doing really well they understanding both is so vital for the future. leave thinking about what it means to be themselves and how they will respond. DID YOU KNOW THE tank was the personal stories of bravery, fear, love and greatest secret weapon of the First World courage are told through letters, reports, “We’re presenting love and death and War? Looking at the size of them in real interviews, photographs and personal fascism and communism, fear and life it’s hard to imagine how it was kept a items, all weaving the story of what life courage and hatred and compassion secret for long. According to the Director was like for the people who commanded – the whole set of things that make up of The Tank Museum in Bovington, this or drove those early ‘secret weapons’. a human being - which happen in war. great piece of British innovation was one “What we have here is a collection of We show people the extremes of what it of the crucial elements that helped win primary source materials,” explained means to be a human being.” the war, writes Rachel Farmer. Richard. “They are real evidence of truth. It’s an antidote to today’s fake Not a soldier himself, Richard has a Richard Smith has been Director of the news, which comes between the public huge admiration for members of the Tank Museum since 2006. Housing one and primary source material, telling us armed forces. The Tank Museum is the most important collection of tanks something with no evidence.” nestled on the edge of the Armour in the world, the museum welcomes just Centre, Bovington, the heart of the under a quarter of a million visitors each “The reason the Museum is particularly Royal Armoured Corps and the British year. A history graduate, with many years important is that we’re part of the Army’s centre of excellence for experience in the international shipping nation’s corporate memory about what training in the core skills of business, Richard is passionate about war is. The more detached the nation armoured warfare. The tanks and also about truth. gets from war the more casual people Armour Centre trains can become about it. The more people soldiers in driving and He said, “Ever since I could read, I read know about war, the less inclined they maintaining British Army history books. My parents are to enter into it casually.” armoured fighting are Christians and I became a Christian vehicles and at a Billy Graham Crusade when I was He said, “When people come to the tank operating vehicle 17. Truth counts. Truth is important and museum they should be forced to think weapons’ systems we’re in a place that seeks to present the about what war means. If we’re doing and communications truth. Christians should always take joy OK people leave knowing a lot about equipment. in pursuing the truth.” tanks. If we’re doing well they leave thinking a lot about the “The privilege of my position is The Museum, according to Richard, nation they live in and how it being able to watch soldiers at close is a rich source of truth. Incredible contact 04 quarters and understand more about archives or visitors have helped shape them,” said Richard. “The never ceasing his view of the past and the present. wonder I have is about how they do He explained, “One story from the First bravery. Bravery is the strangest most World War is of Roland Bradford. There counter-intuitive and most difficult thing are three things about him that define people have to do. The army in particular my world view. He was a brigadier has to train thousands of people to be in charge of about 4,000 men. He brave at the same time and it is the most died on 30th November 1917 at the astonishing cultural achievement. It is Battle of Cambrai, killed by enemy something I have never encountered in fire. The previous summer he won a We’re any other part of my life. Bravery is what Victoria Cross, for which you have to sets the army apart. How do you come be outrageously brave. This was not to value something more than your own a desk general. When he died Roland part of the life?” Bradford was 25. You had a 25-year- old brigadier. The British Army was the nation’s Richard first visited the museum when kind of organisation that would make a he was just two years old and would 25-year-old a brigadier. If you look at the corporate never have dreamt that he would end kind of organisations today that would up running the place. What fascinated do that, you are looking at leading edge memory him as a child is still working its magic technology companies. It shows us that ‘ on today’s young visitors – especially the First World War British Army had about what the boys. One mother said it was the the dynamics of a modern technology one museum her teenage son had been company.” pestering her to visit for ages and it was war is. no disappointment. Although anchored “Joe Ekins is another person who in the past, the Museum links in with the influenced my view on a soldier’s latest gaming technology and partners bravery. He died in 2012 and we saw a with the game World of Tanks with some lot of Joe here at the museum. Joe was 140 million registered players worldwide. the exemplification of a British Second According to Richard, although they have World War soldier. He was a tank gunner game consoles on the museum floor, the in August 1944 but might be thought reality of climbing onto a tank is yet to be of as a reluctant amateur. Joe took part overtaken by the virtual world. in Operation Totalise and encountered the pinnacle of the Nazi war machine, Some of the personal stories Richard has Michael Wittmann, who was a come across through the Tank Museum’s (continued on page 7) ’ contact 05 contact 06 from trauma to healing in Jordan Former Army education officer and ex- AFCU Ops Director, Val Hall, had no intention of risking rats, cockroaches and dubious food on a mission to Africa, with retired Lt Colonel and founder of Flame International, Jan Ransom.