From Afghanistan to X Factor...

X Factor has sparked some views from me before here - and yes, it's doing so again. I'm a bit out of date, and feel slightly sad that a reality tv show has found its way into a blog entry on a much more important topic, but it's actually quite useful for trying to illustrate my point!
As Simon Cowell's moneyspinner's final gets closer, we're treated to the regular Sunday evening moment of long pauses from Dermot, tears in the eyes of judges, and contestants swearing that their life with be over if they don't get through. Of course, we all get swept up in this, me too. But I actually found myself a bit annoyed by it recently.
You see, I've just had the privilege to visit Afghanistan, to try to get an insight into what our troops our doing out there, and generally what the situation is.
I could write for hours about the general experience - the magnitude and surreality of Camp Bastion; life in a patrol base and how well looked after I was; journeying round Lashkar Gah supervised by personal G4S bodyguards. I could tell you about how surprisingly good the food is, how advanced some of the kit is, what it's like to ride in a Merlin helicopter or an American Osprey ( very exciting by the way!). I could go on, and on, and on. But it's the slightly deeper things, the things that seem a bit righteous and trite and cheesy, that stick in my head and that come to the forefront when you see the watery-eyed youngsters on the X Factor stage looking like it really is an issue of life or death.
Because when anyone's been to Helmand Province - whether it's a nobody like me, a politician, or a soldier, there's things that pop into your head when you see these wonderfully dramatic scenes. Some of them aren't even that obvious - but they're moments that make you stop, and think. Perhaps it's the brass plaques at Camp Bastion's vigil site, which list the name of every serviceman and woman who's died out there. Perhaps it's the helicopters flying into its hospital - the ones you know have injured or dead soldiers on.
It might be the look on some incredibly young servicemen's faces as they sit on the aircraft taking them to Afghanistan - the apprehension about what they'll see over the next six months, which friends they might lose. Even more impressively, it might be the professionalism and maturity of some of our guys out there - the teenagers who patrol the rural areas of Nad e-Ali, not only watching out for IEDs and insurgents, but bonding with the locals, giving children sweets, talking to local Afghans about threats, and taking the information back for intelligence. These are young men (and women) with their whole lives ahead of them, with less than 20 years experience of life itself, yet they are tackling this situation professionally, with humility, tact, and a maturity that is more than impressive. These young people have probably seen more than most of us in the way of difficult sights, they've made difficult decisions, they face unfathomable dangers. And yes - this all seems rather dramatic, and rather emotional - but they wouldn't have you know the extent of what they do. Ask them about what they do, and it's their "job". Ask them about the dangers they face, the losses they have seen, the time they spend away from their families, and they will say that is what they joined to do. They comprehend the importance of their role, they deal with the elation over successes, frustration over losses, and grief over deaths. And they get on with it.
Compare this, if you will, to the tears, the hysteria and the wailing we see on reality TV. And then take a second to wonder which is more important.