Johnson Beharry Wins Victoria Cross in Iraq

The two-year-old war in Iraq has been one huge dishonor after another. Fought originally to disarm a dangerous regime, it turns out there were no weapons of mass destruction regardless of how hard Christopher Hitchens now toes the Dick Cheney line. The cake-walk turned into a quagmire, and there is still no accounting for literally billion of Iraqi oil revenues "lost" under the first occupation authority. And the election on January 30 has not produced a government as of March 20. But there are acts of human decency and heroism. Private Johnson Beharry of Her Majesty's Armed Forces has two such stories, and a Victoria Cross, the highest honor a British or Commonwealth soldier can win.

Private Beharry is a driver of an armored personnel carrier [APC], 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment. It is his job to bring the Queen's soldiers to and from the fighting. By definition, that means he gets shot at rather a lot. According to the citation that came with the medal, on May 1, he led a five vehicle column through a mile of enemy fire to drop off wounded soldiers at a medical unit. A few weeks later, his APC took a hit by a rocket propelled grenade, wounding Private Beharry in the head. He managed to keep his focus long enough to drive out of danger. In addition, he went back twice under fire to rescue comrades.

His wife Lynthia got a visit from a sergeant major who told her that her husband had a 50-50 chance of living. That was not surprising since the head injury required brain surgery. No fewer than 30 members of Her Majesty's armed forces are alive today because of his disregard for his personal safety.

Chief of Staff General Sir Mike Jackson (not Sir Michael), said, "We all know that the Victoria Cross is held in such high regard in our country and any holder of it is rightly given enormous respect for what he has done." Prime Minister of Grenada (where Private Beharry was born) said his "achievement will inspire the young men and women of Grenada, and should be used as a less which demonstrates that the most difficult challenges and trying times can be overcome." The VC is so rare that the last time it was awarded to a living recipient was 1969.

As most troops know, medals for bravery are usually the result of courage making up for a mistake, usually made by someone far from the front lines. In the case of Iraq, the mistake was to go in with far too few men at the beginning. Or to go in at all. But there is a lesson the civilian world has learned since 1969 -- respect for the men and women in combat has nothing to do with the support of the cause. Private Johnson Beharry, VC, is a great soldier in a miserable war. There are actually a lot of those around these days. When asked what about the medal, Private Beharry said, "I was just doing the job." The Kensington Review hopes he gets to come home and stay there very soon.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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