A Salute to Corporal Sarah Bryant

I was reminded of this last week when we heard that Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, became the first female UK soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. She died along with three other soldiers when their vehicle was hit by an explosion, taking the UK death toll since 2002 to 106.

I must be honest, the news of her death has been playing on my mind ever since.

I don't know exactly why it is but the death of a female soldier - and one so young - invariably evokes in us an acute pang of sadness, something close to love and empathy.

Of course it was inevitable that sooner or later we would have to come to terms with a female casualty, but for some reason rather difficult to fathom, I didn't quite expect it, as if - in my mind at least - women soldiers are immune to military danger and destruction.

But, sadly, they're not.

My heart goes out to her family as if some injustice has occurred. It's as if a loss of a woman in a battlefield is a reminder of the appalling cruelty we have to deal with in a benign universe, where not even the gods care about the plight of their creation.

Perhaps it's something else.

Perhaps as rational beings yet victims of cultural conditioning - it's the facing to the cold hard truth that we, as men, should be out there, not our women.

What kind of a world have we created where our women, our wives and daughters feel compelled to fight for us, whilst we sit around watching day-time television, enjoying tennis or cricket?

So perhaps - deep down - it's a sense of guilt that men like myself are feeling, acknowledging the absurdity of our civilised world where our women, our wives and daughters die for their families - and no one cares a bit.

Tonight under the watchful stars, in the hands of gods, surely Corporal Sarah Bryant bravery and heroism are more than we can imagine...