I think it’s fair to say that I’m not a military kind of person. I believe, quite firmly, that armed conflict is folly and must be avoided whenever at all possible. What on earth is the point of sending young men to brutally kill one another, when a conflict can more efficiently be resolved if people just get around a table and talk to one another? Yet I also know that there are times when physical conflict is unavoidable, and necessary to protect one’s community or friends. In the room behind me right now there are three Polish guys; they might not be here if Britain had not gone to war in 1939. Thus, as much as I detest conflict, I know the military deserves my respect.

War is famously hell: it is brutal, bloody and barbarous. Frankly, I can barely imagine what it must be like when you’re about to go into a conflict zone, knowing there is a good chance that you or your comrades will shortly be ripped apart by a bullet or shell. I know this comparison might be a bit stretched, but to be honest the closest I’ve come to it is looking into the eyes of my classmates. They knew they didn’t have long to live; they knew their Muscular Dystrophy would sap away their strength and rob them of their lives far sooner than they deserved, yet they carried on nonetheless. I see my friends as soldiers, on a par with those who fight to defend their communities.

Thus like many others I was disgusted by what Donald Trump said yesterday. I may not like war, and can certainly see that there were huge problems with the fact that British soldiers were in Afghanistan in the first place. But that is no reason to allow him to degrade or belittle their contribution or sacrifice. 457 British personnel died in Afghanistan, alongside many others from a diverse array of countries. Pacifist though I may be, to hear that draft-dodging piece of shit state yesterday that they somehow held back from the front line, so that only Americans did the fighting, was beyond the pale. To hear Trump utter such bile as though he were some kind of great military historian or commander, when he was famously too cowardly, arrogant and self-important to defend his country himself, made me want to rip his head off. Thus, as much as I don’t want to get caught up in any kind of patriotic furore, but Trump now owes them and this country a grovelling apology.