‘IT is really important that people learn about the war,’ said a Gwent Falklands War veteran as the 40th anniversary of the start of the war is marked.

Denzil Connick from Blackwood said that he believes people need to learn about and remember the Falklands War which he said showed that Britain would not stand for the ‘aggressive’ invasion of their territory.

“If you ask the people born in the 2000’s they won’t know what you are on about,” he said when talking about the war.

“For us veterans, we think about it every day, the memories of what we witnessed and those who we lost.

“Even though all those years have gone by all of us still remember the actions we were involved in for the rest of our lives.

“People say that by looking backwards, we’re not going to improve but without looking back, we won’t learn from the mistakes of the past to build a better future.”

The 10-week war which began on April 2, 1982, saw 255 British and more than 645 Argentine troops killed.

Mr Connick joined the Parachute Regiment as a 15-year-old in 1972 and was among the first to be deployed to the Falklands after Argentinian troops invaded a decade later.

South Wales Argus:

The lance corporal survived the bloody battle for Mount Longdon, where he saw 23 comrades die and he was badly injured during the battle where he lost a leg.

He is proud of his and his comrades’ actions to this day and believes that many people at the time were ‘naïve’ in their approach when questioning why the UK Armed Forces were involved in the war in the first place.

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“People said that the Falklands were so far away and at the time there was around 2,000 people on the islands and people would wonder why we were defending the islands when Argentina invaded.

“That is a naïve way of approaching the subject, it doesn’t matter how many people there were, it is standing up to the bullies. We showed that the British would not stand for an invasion on the realm.”

South Wales Argus:

He believes he is seeing a repeat of the Falklands in the current Ukraine war.  “Ukraine is being bullied by a very big aggressive neighbour which is what happened with the Falklands and a dictator was in charge at the time.”

Mr Connick, who has suffered from PTSD, founded the South Atlantic Medal Association for veterans of the Falklands War and campaigns for the welfare of veterans. He is also a caseworker for SSAFA, another of the charities supporting armed forces members and their families.