Posted 18th Aug 2009
t's a grim milestone - more than 200 soldiers have died Afghanistan. The personal stories behind each loss are barely heard, but trawl the internet and there are any number of memorials dedicated to the fallen.
He was 27, from the Royal Signals, and was killed in July 2006 alongside Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, 24, whose name may be more familiar as he was the first British Muslim serviceman to be killed in action in Afghanistan.
MOD photo of Peter Thorpe
Corporal Peter Thorpe in Afghanistan
Google "Corporal Peter Thorpe" and his life is there to find, from a child in Cumbria to a soldier in Sangin.
He is on YouTube, Facebook, Gone Too Soon and Lasting Tribute, to name but a few.
There are pictures of him surrounded by mates, arms around each other. In others, he is embracing his girlfriend.
To complete his story, there are also photographs of his body returning home and the various memorials around the world which bear his name.
Shine a light
Many of the pictures have been uploaded by one of Peter's brothers to Gone Too Soon, a not-for-profit organisation which has more than 58,000 memorials.
More than 500 virtual candles have been lit for him, the last added just last week - some two years after his death.
Natalie Cargan
I wanted to make more people, including my friends, aware of the situation in Afghanistan
Natalie Cargan
His family and friends return to the memorial time and time again to mark certain occasions, or just to write down their thoughts.
His sister, Natalie Cargan, also set up an online tribute to remember her big brother.
The 21-year-old from Barrow-in-Furness has created a group on social networking site Facebook - "For all those who fell in Iraq and Afghanistan and the injured" - six months after Peter died.
"I wanted to make more people, including my friends, aware of the situation in Afghanistan and the sacrifices being made."
Pictures, video, messages and poems are posted on the site and people also use it to advertise fundraising events for charities such as Help for Heroes and Combat Stress.
Although there are message boards on controversial topics such as the level of equipment for troops, she tries to keep politics out of it.
"I think it is right just to leave it as a place to remember soldiers. My brother loved the Army so much. I don't agree with some of things they are doing but I'm respecting him by respecting the Army."
Online grief
Relatives, friends, comrades and complete strangers use social media to honour the dead.
You cannot substitute computer grief for the real thing
Phillip Hodson
But is such a public outpouring of grief good for the soul?
Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says Britain is reverting back to Victorian times, when a great deal was made of death.
It was a "deathbed culture" during that era, where letters were sent to friends and relatives detailing a loved one's final moments and widows wore black for a year.
Today, advances in technology allow for "instant grief", he says.
"Grief is inconvenient and it's not quick. It's not an event, it's a process. You cannot substitute computer grief for the real thing.
"Anything that helps you with your grief should be explored, but just be aware of the risks."
A mother's grief
Sharon Backhouse, whose 18-year-old son, Rifleman James Backhouse, was killed in an explosion in Helmand on 10 July, acknowledges that online memorials are deferring her grief. But it is a case of "whatever gets you through".
Friends and family of James Backhouse and other fallen soldiers as their bodies are repatriated
Death for one so young is now rare
She says Facebook has been her saviour because it helps her focus on his life rather than his death.
"There's a lot of pictures on there that we haven't seen. It's good to see pictures of him in Afghanistan.
"He was posing for the pictures - it's good to see he was the life and soul out there. If I didn't have the pictures on there, I wouldn't be here today."
The 45-year-old from Castleford, West Yorkshire, says the memorials personalise her son for other people. And she has found comfort in talking to another mother whose son was killed the same day as James.
'Used to death'
In wars of old, grieving relatives just got on with life, and support came from the entire community, says military historian Taff Gillingham.
Facebook and other social media brings Afghanistan to a generation who don't have an understanding of the losses of war
Sam Darroch
During World War I, WWII and the period of National Service, there were thousands and thousands of people in the same situation.
"War and death touched everyone. People didn't wear their hearts on their sleeve, not so much because of the British stiff upper lip, but because grief was commonplace.
"At the time of WWI, British people were used to death - it was around them all the time. One in 10 babies died before they reached the age of one."
He said communities were "tighter" and the war was not happening in some far away place - it was being played out on their doorsteps.
There was an "enormous network of people helping out", with formalised support taking off after WWI with the formation of the British Legion in 1921.
But as the armed forces shrunk in size, so did the network of support available to soldiers and relatives.
Lasting Tribute page
Lasting Tribute has a special section for fallen soldiers
Sam Darroch says online memorials reach out to a generation unaccustomed to war.
The 33-year-old surveyor from Kent looks after the Facebook memorial group Remembering The Fallen in Afghanistan for his soldier friend Nathan Fenn, who created it 10 months ago and is now on a six-month tour of Afghanistan.
Mr Darroch says he initially agreed to monitor the site - which passed the 100,000-member mark five weeks ago - as a favour, thinking at first that it was a "rather macabre" task.
"Now I see it as something incredibly important. Facebook and other social media brings Afghanistan to a generation who don't have an understanding of the losses of war.
"I never thought of Facebook as a serious thing, but our site educates and enlightens - which can only be a good thing."
» See Also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8203096.stm
