Greg lays Legion wreath at Basra Memorial in Iraq

Greg Brownlow said he was honoured to visit the Basra Memorial, located 32 kilometres along the road to Nasiriyah, in the middle of what was a major battleground during the first Gulf War.

Greg said: “Over the years I have had many opportunities and the honour to lay a poppy wreath on Remembrance Sunday, but non as honourable as the laying of a Coleraine British Legion donated wreath on November 8 at Basra Memorial.

He added: “It is occasions like this service you reflect that fallen comrades can be remembered with dignity and honour, by people lucky in life to have an opportunity to travel to far flung parts of the world like this memorial. “

Greg has been working for G4S, one of the world’s leading international security solutions group for some years now and travels home as often as he can to visit his family.

Until 1997 the Basra Memorial was located on the main quay of the naval dockyard at Maqil, on the west bank of the Shatt-al-Arab, about 8 kilometres north of Basra.

Because of the sensitivity of the site, the memorial was moved by presidential decree. The move, carried out by the authorities in Iraq, involved a considerable amount of manpower, transport costs and sheer engineering on their part, and the memorial has been re-erected in its entirety.

The Basra Memorial commemorates more than 40,500 members of the Commonwealth forces who died in the operations in Mesopotamia from the Autumn of 1914 to the end of August 1921 and whose graves are not known. It was designed by Edward Warren.