25 years ago, on April 9th 1982, I stood on the jetty at Southampton and waved farewell to my husband, a member of 42 Cdo. I never saw him again he was killed by a landmine as his troop yomped their way across the islands to Port Stanley.
In 1997, Margaret Thatcher made a promise to the widows and mothers of the fallen:
"May I finally say this. It was not done at great loss. As we know and we heard this evening. At the memorial service at St. Paul's when the Queen unveiled the memorial tablet to all of those who lost their lives, there was a reception afterwards and I and many of the rest of us were among the relatives, one very nice Scottish mother came up to me rather quickly, I could see she was very anxious, I went up to her. And she said this to me, she had lost her son who[fo 6] 19 years old in the campaign, so she said to me, "you will never let the Falkland Islands go will you Mrs. Thatcher, you will never let them go?" I said "no, never." And I believe that pledge will be honoured by future Prime Ministers, Parliament and people of our great country that we may finally honour all of those who gave their lives for the liberty and land of the Falkland Islands." http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108370
In her speech, Thatcher alludes to what is commonly known as the Nelson Touch and for all the stats, Jane's and little lists one can give to bolster an argument of which force will prove their readiness, those arguments leaving out the Nelson Touch variable remain flawed.
"We were so very fortunate in all our Commanders. I have often thought that had we used computers in those days to assess the risk as to whether we should go, eight thousand miles away to the South Atlantic, arriving in the winter, our people having been on board for three and a half weeks, there were people in the Falkland Islands, far more Argentine troops than we could ever have, they were fresh, we would unload ours, they were tired. Had we fed it into a computer, the computer would have said "you would be mad to go." But of course a computer cannot tell the spirit of the people. It cannot tell the spirit of the nation. It cannot tell the proud competence and resourcefulness of the Commanders, the marvellous morale and the resourcefulness armed forces, and their wonderful resolve never to be defeated. And so the Task Force sailed."
Nelson recognized the intrinsic value of this and was able to tap into that spirit, so did Churchill, Thatcher and now Blair. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are good leaders that their constituencies will blindly follow, it means that they were smart enough to recognize and utilize the spirit of a nation and use it.
I can recall quite vividly the reports in the papers and newscasts during the build up. It was not the images of Royal Marines lying on the ground that inspired a nation to sail to their rescue, it was the reports that British women, children and men were locked in a community centre against their will. In the windows, bumpers of vehicles and on the doors and front windows of British houses these stickers quickly appeared. Now one can argue that stickers does not a victory make nor do they continue to motivate a nation. I would argue that no matter how well one thinks they understand defence capabilities, the use of military power or strategic, tactical and operational abilities, or run AHP models with variables up the ying yang and down to the 50th level, if one neglects to incorporate the essence of a nation and it's spirit and identity, then the outcomes will be very different from what was anticipated and predicted.
The yearly assertions of rights to the islands is also a mundane aspect of legal doctrines to not be deemed to abandon, cede, surrender, transfer, grant, or convey land.
