Board Meeting 08.01.202

Board Meeting 08 January 2012 Endurance


My theme today is endurance. I suspect that it will have a certain resonance with most of us in the room, whether we are approaching the end of our tour, are nearing the half-way point, or have just begun.

My first thought, by way of introduction, was to review the successes – and failures – of Ernest Shackleton, the eleventh most famous Britain of all time, who died on 05 January 1922. The Shackleton family motto was "Fortitudine Vincimus," (by endurance we conquer) and it was after this motto that the ship chosen for the1914, British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was named. This was prescient, for The Endurance became entrapped and the subsequent survival and escape of the 27 crew members is now legendary.

Then, I wondered about the famous or, better, infamous, British ‘retreat from Kabul’ which commenced on 06 January 1842. Out of a total of 4,500 military personnel and 12,000 camp followers only a handful survived the 90 mile march to Jahalabad, one of them being Dr John Brydon. It seems that doctors were no less eccentric – or should that be canny – then, than now, because although part of his skull was sheared off by an Afghan sword, Brydon made it because he had stuffed a copy of Blackwood's Magazine into his hat to fight the intense cold and it was the magazine took most of the blow, saving his life!

In the end, I decided upon something a little more contemporary and so turned to the record books and the exploits of a serving member of 2 Para, Paddy Doyle


Guinness Physical fitness record challenge 16/02/2005 18 hrs. 56 mins , B'ham UK

12 mile run

12 mile walk {25 lb back pack}

1,250 push ups

1,250 star jumps

3,250 sit ups

1,250 hip flexors {10 lb weight}

110 mile cycle

20 mile rowing

20 mile cross trainer

Weights 300,000 lb {various lifts}

2 mile swim

Press ups 24 hours 01/05/1989 {Guinness Record}

The most press ups in 24 hours is 37,350. Venue B'ham City Centre UK.

Moving on from those extremes, it is worth noting that endurance takes many different forms and the remarkable thing about Shackleton, if I may return to him for a moment, is the whole package - physical, mental and I think we may say, spiritual. Given the different ways in which the word endurance may be applied, I don’t think it inappropriate to use the E word of our own exploits here on Op Herrick.

On that note, a few weeks ago, a member of my church sent me a newspaper clipping containing an excerpt from a book, the title of which says all that needs to be said about Ops. The book is by Max Bentz, who served with the Scots Guards in Afghanistan in 2010. Its title is – Six months without Sunday’s. That is the challenge that most, if not all of us, have had or will have to face, give or take a few weeks. The title is perceptive, because it is the absence of the usual weekly staging posts like weekends, days off and holidays, that, I believe, makes being here as tough as it is (though I don’t wish to overstate the case)

How then are we to endure? We will each have our own strategies. Whichever we adopt, a simple rule of thumb is that we can only give out what we put in and that, as a result, if we are not somehow, somewhere, in some way or other, taking resources on board, eventually we will go under. If we are not doing this, we can only be surviving by eating into our reserves and this cannot go on indefinitely.

For the Christian, the supreme resource is God Himself and our encounter with Him. Going back to the title ‘Six months without Sundays’, a famous Eighteenth Century Cambridge cleric, Charles Simeon, notable amongst other things for the early adoption of the umbrella, used to say, ‘I am a eight day clock which must be wound once a week’. Maybe the once a week is not so easy here, but the principle remains valid.

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40