Who is Michael Flynn?

How have I missed him?  

Someone from Cardiff with the same name of one of my brothers, my grandfather and my great grandfather   is the most most decorated soldier in the British Army. Why is Corporal Michael Flynn not celebrated as a distinguished war hero.

As an avid reader of news from the Afghan war, I have never seen a mention of his extraordinary exploits. Only today did I see his name in the splendid account of the war 'A Million Bullets' by freelance journalist  James Ferguson.

I am grateful for the Christmas present that provides a vivid account of the  courage and futility of the Afghan disaster. Written from the soldier's viewpoint the volume is rightly contemptuous of the bungling of politicians and admires  the remarkable 'can-do' skills of the British soldier.

Michael Flynn is just one of the many unknown heroes named. He was persuaded to go back into the Army at the age of 41, and in five years he has demonstrated such extraordinary courage in the two most dangerous overseas operations that he has just added the Military Cross to the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, second only to the Victoria Cross, which he won for two incidents in Iraq in 2003. He won the MC in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, at the height of the clashes with the Taliban in August.

He provides this account of his  exploit. "We had to go forward and provide an overwatch on the district centre at Musa Qaleh so that the Danish could come out of their camp. I was in the lead vehicle and the vehicle directly behind me got blown up. I had driven over the IED, they let me past and blew up the vehicle behind me. I was then trapped and they fired numerous rockets at us. Three RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] hit us and one went over the top. We took out the machine-gun posts to the front of us and killed them. 

The Taliban's main killing group was probably about 10 metres away. There was about 20 or 30 of them. I made a decision to go on through the ambush and I looked behind and saw that there was a lot of smoke coming from the vehicle behind. We turned round and went through the ambush firing phosphorous grenades at them. The bar armour which protected the vehicle had been hit so we had to dismount. The Taliban were coming down the lane towards us. We killed three of them, but the rest kept firing. We had to fight our way along then jump in a ditch.

"I checked the vehicle behind me. Inside I could see one body. The one outside was blown up and was just a mass of meat. It was just another dead body. Without trying to sound callous, I don't have any feelings. I think I have become immune to it. You can't, they are finished, that's it. I just accept that they are dead. Obviously it went through my brain, but my main issue was to get the other two guys out of there alive. My driver was having problems and I said we have to move otherwise they are going to kill us.

"Radders [Lance Corporal of Horse Andrew Radford] came and said there was a body on top of the hill. I said 'why don't you shoot it?' and he said 'no, it's one of ours'. We made our way to the body. I could see it was one of the lads. I thought he was dead, but as I moved his leg, which was jutting out at an angle, he screamed. When I first looked at him he had fish eyes and I thought he was dead. I threw him on to Radders' shoulders and we shot our way back. He was really badly burnt, he had 80% burns. There was a lot of other Taliban coming down to cut us off. We had left two vehicles on the overwatch 1/2 mile away and they engaged the Taliban.

"I could only account for three bodies. I couldn't see the other body. I talked to the Paras and they sent a company to give us support and to get the bodies out. Because I knew where the positions of the bodies were I was asked if I could lead the Paras back in. We still had one body unaccounted for. You have to go back for him. You can't just leave somebody there. There was no question about us not going back. The Paras then formed up and brought in lots of fire and artillery. We pushed forward and cleared their positions with grenades. This is our job. It is what we do for a living."