The Prime Minister’s statement on the long-awaited Saville report exposed some raw emotion in the Chamber this week.
As he spoke, I could recall my three tours in the troubled Province as if it was yesterday.
Bloody Sunday had occurred only six years before I first arrived in Belfast, fresh from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in December 1978.
So, it is with some experience that I comment on the Saville report.
There is no doubt that ill-discipline and poor leadership conspired to create a black day in the proud history of the British army.
Mr Cameron apologized for the soldiers’ actions, which was the right thing to do; as representatives of the British Government, the army cannot be seen to operate outside the law.
However, there is confusion about what the IRA was doing, although the report concludes a sniper fired at least once and that Martin McGuiness was “probably” carrying a sub-machine gun. He denies that.
I am not about to defend the right of the army to shoot 13 civilians dead, but for those who have never served in Northern Ireland it is hard perhaps to fully comprehend the almost impossible challenges that young soldiers had to face.
Bloody Sunday was not an isolated incident; these things never are. The build up to this fateful civil rights’ march included the murder of two RUC officers – one a Catholic – in Londonderry only three days before.
An operational posting is always an exciting moment for any professional soldier. And nearly 40 years ago, these young paratroopers were dealing with an inflammatory situation, which I can assure you would have created a heady mix of fear, apprehension and visceral excitement.
In the back of your mind were the onerous rules of engagement.
For example, if a car was driven straight at a check point, we were forbidden to shoot unless lives were in imminent danger.
I mention this to emphasize that we were there to save lives, not take them.
In Afghanistan, where soldiers are frequently fired upon, and a battalion of about 600 men might fire thousands of rounds a day, the rules of engagement are even more stringent.
“There is to be no firing unless we are fired upon first and no speculative firing,” Patrick Mercer, both former soldier and Minister for the Armed Forces, told me.
“If there is a risk of damaging civilians or civilian property then firing is to stop. Clearly, while protecting himself, a soldier’s pre-eminent concern must be to ensure that there is no collateral damage to civilians.”
Inevitably, there are difficulties, he added. A pilot providing air support to troops on the ground is totally unable to differentiate between civilians and the enemy while travelling at 700 miles per hour.
“If the troops are taking fire, it’s a judgement call.”
Well, those young men in Londonderry made a ‘judgement call’ nearly 40 years ago, and clearly it was the wrong one.
But, in my view, that should not mean they face prosecution today, although that decision is not mine, or indeed Parliament’s.
Whatever the reasons for this appalling lack of control on 30 January 1972, those soldiers did not leave their barracks that day with the intent of killing 13 civilians.