Falklands vets return for tribute (From Times Series)

Falklands vets return for tribute

4:45am Wednesday 13th June 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Thirty years ago, 450 men from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment defeated 1,200 Argentines in bitter fighting at the crucial battle of Goose Green.

And now the veterans of the Falklands War have taken an emotional journey back to the site of the brutal battle during which 17 British troops and 47 Argentinian soldiers lost their lives.

The battle lasted a day and a night and was to become one of the most well documented during the 74 day conflict.

"That battle came down to bayonets and bullets," said veteran Rick Cross. "When I looked at the battlefield again for the first time I was just like - how did we do it?

"If it had been us defending, we would have died of old age there. We should not have been able to capture it - if you look at how many (troops) they had, the resources they had and what we had."

Mr Cross was a 20-year-old corporal living in Cornwall when he received his orders to go to war in 1982. The paratrooper fought back tears as he recalled painful memories and said he was hoping to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.

He said: "At the time we were taught if somebody goes down leave him for the people behind you, so you didn't know who had gone down, and when I came back it seemed like all my friends were dead. The guys that had gone were my best friends. I can remember just thinking 'we're being slaughtered'."

The pilgrimage to the battlefield is the first time Mr Cross has returned to the isolated islands, which lie 8,000 miles from the UK in the South Atlantic.

Mr Cross added: "People always ask 'was it was worth it?', and it's only in the past few days I think I can now truthfully, put my hand on my heart, and say 'yes, it was worth it'."

He joined fellow veterans to honour his fallen comrades on the snow-covered, wind-swept hills where they fought and died to liberate the islanders from Argentinian occupation.