What Connects Armistice Day and Online Shopping?
By Steve Hawker In September of this year, I watched my television with horror. Young British lions in Basra were baling out of a Warrior armoured vehicle that was engulfed in flames, in the face of an angry mob armed with petrol bombs. A few weeks earlier, three young men from the same regiment had died in a roadside bomb explosion in Al Amarah. I would like to contrast these dreadful incidents with the way that some British online shopkeepers support our troops serving their country overseas. As Christmas approaches, many members of the armed forces, who are serving abroad with and without their families, will turn to the Internet to buy their presents. When far from home, short of time and under real pressure, there is something comforting about buying Christmas presents on a British high street, albeit a virtual British high street. The lack of support from shopkeepers centres on the British Forces Post Office (BFPO) system. Not on the system itself, which performs heroically in mo
