I thoroughly recommend ‘Glimpses of the Falklands War’ to you. Its many vivid and wide-ranging eye-witness accounts, most never before published, are riveting to read, bringing the war and its aftermath alive on the printed page. The BMMHS is certainly to be congratulated for galvanising some two hundred contributors from across the globe, including the Falklands and Argentina, to reveal their individual memories of so many different aspects, and for collating and publishing them, all in just a few months; the result is a very powerful and unique testimony to the life-changing event that was the Falklands War. The accounts in ‘Glimpses’ are all the more poignant for being tempered by forty years’ reflection and reconciliation, and for helping raise funds for Blind Veterans UK.

‘Glimpses’ also holds a mirror to events today, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and offers a glimpse into future wars too; technology may change but the nature of war, its results, and human emotions and  reactions, remain the same. There is hope too: the steely determination not to bow down and surrender to an aggressor, and the empathy of others, come across strongly in this book; this resonates with Europe and the world today and will doubtless continue to do so for wars potentially yet to come or preventable. Wars are about people, and self-determination, much more than about geography. Potential aggressors, think twice, and desist. There are no winners in war. ‘Glimpses’ offers us a glimpse into present and future, just as much as it does into recent past.

David Vassallo,
Chairman, Friends of Millbank
www.friendsofmillbank.org