Middlesbrough veteran hopes people will remember Armed Forces sacrifices
Lee Holmes was part of the Second Battalion Yorkshire Regiment Green Howards
It is hoped people in Teesside and the rest of the North East will remember the large-scale sacrifice of the Armed Forces today.
At 11am, there will be services across our region.
Lee Holmes - who's from Middlesbrough - is a veteran currently living in Scarborough. He served as a soldier but is now in full-time employment.
He got injured and had to end a tour in Afghanistan early.
Lee said:
"I think I was 21. I was a young lad and I joined the Second Battalion Yorkshire Regiment in Weeton Barracks and I spent a couple of years there but during that time, we were deployed to Afghanistan in 2009/2010's winter tour. There was a lot of scrapping, fighting and it was very, very busy. We were then posted to Cyprus and I left in 2013.
"We were on a large scale operation in Afghanistan. There were French, Americans, Welsh and us who were trying to take a town in the South. The town had been abandoned and filled with bombs essentially like IEDs. Our team at around 7am on the second morning was hit by a roadside bomb, it was hidden inside a wall. The blast pretty much enveloped 20 to 30 people.
"There was about four or five dead, two or three quite badly injured and then myself, I got frag wounds in my left arm which sort of went through my bicep and then came out the other side. It wasn't life threatening but it was quite a shock and that took me out of action for the rest of the tour, so I went home early unfortunately because of that.
"I think at the time, as most people do, the grass is greener on the other side. I had friends who were travelling the world doing this and that and I was like 'I'm going to do that' but I didn't. I don't necessarily regret I didn't do that. Looking back I was young and I probably shouldn't have left when I left but I did. I'm doing things now which are still good so I can't moan.
"It's always a good day today. There's always a lot of veterans out and about. It's a good time to meet up, catch up and have a drink. As I'm getting older, it's getting a bit more sombre. I sort of think about all the lads from World War One especially because I think what happened during those years was quite atrocious to be honest with you. I sort of think of it a bit more sombrely as I'm older and I try and be as respectful to match that.
"I think we need to remember back to especially World War One and obviously World War Two as well because there probably wasn't a household in England that wasn't affected by what happened. Probably almost every family lost someone. The scale of what happened was unthinkable. Just try and have a bit of respect, even if you don't quite believe in war, whatever it is, just remember the large-scale sacrifice was just unthinkable."