Posted on 10/12/2008 5:32:46 AM PDT by northmoor
Forces to repay town's tributes
Members of the armed forces are to parade through the streets of a town in Wiltshire to thank locals for honouring dead British service personnel.
Over the past 18 months residents of Wootton Bassett have lined the streets more than 100 times as coffins have been brought through the town.
The town is near RAF Lyneham, the airbase to which bodies are repatriated after deaths in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Sunday afternoon's tribute will also see a flypast from a Hercules aircraft.
In a letter to the town thanking the residents for the gesture, the head of the British Army, Sir Richard Dannatt, said: "I am writing to express my sincere gratitude...
"In many respects, it is the things that cost nothing that are the ones that are the most important - a friendly greeting in the street, a prayer in church... But the gestures shown by the people of Wootton Bassett surpass these at every level."
Among those who regularly turn out to pay their respects are former servicemen and women.
Frank Pepler, a retired Grenadier Guardsman, told the BBC: "Being an ex-serviceman you're always going to support.
"The majority of people support ex-service people coming home like this from the east, or wherever they're serving.
"You're just showing that respect for them really."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
was based in Wiltshire for 4 years and enjoyed it down there.
The country side and old English villages and towns were beautiful especially for someone who was from a big northern industrial city.
still nice to know that there are people who appreciate us unlike the looney far left radical idiots
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