THE father of a hero soldier killed in a notorious landmine disaster in Afghanistan has revealed he had to walk out of a film depicting the tragedy.
THE father of a hero soldier killed in a notorious landmine disaster in Afghanistan has revealed he had to walk out of a film depicting the tragedy.
Bob Wright, whose son Corporal Mark Wright was posthumously awarded a George Cross after he died rescuing a colleague from the landmine-riddled riverbed near the Kijaki dam in 2006, said he welcomed the film's authenticity but admitted he could not bear reliving his son's death on the big screen.
The Kijacki incident, in which three other servicemen lost limbs, has been turned into a feature film, 'Kijaki', which began screening at cinemas last week amid critical acclaim for its realism.
Mr Wright, 67, from Dalkeith in Midlothian, said he welcomed the film??s release but admitted he could not sit through the most horrific scenes.
He said: ??It??s a good thing. It let??s the public know what the lad have to go through.
??I have seen the film, at screenings in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but I had to leave the room when it got to the scenes of Mark??s death, I couldn??t sit through that. My wife [Jem] has never seen it. It kind of gets your eyes opened up to what they faced.
??Mark just used to say he was ??sitting at the top of a hill and he was bored?? - he never went into detail about what it was like out there.??
The film??s director, Paul Katis, approached the Wrights two years ago when he began working on the script and Mr Wright said they welcomed his interest in bringing the story to cinemas.
The film went on general release last Friday and has been lauded by critics including Mark Kermode, who praised it as a ??visceral British war movie?? and an ??antidote to the American flag-waving??.
He added: ??The film itself wisely avoids glib romanticism, opting instead for gruelling realism.??
A review in Variety said the drama depicted the ??unvarnished reality?? of war, but ??never appears to be exploiting real-life carnage for shock effect.??
Geoffrey McNab in the Independent said the film ??possesses authenticity and intensity??.
It is one of the first films to portray the conflict from a British perspective.
An inquest in 2008 heard that the minefield where Corporal Wright died had been identified weeks earlier but left unmarked. A military inquiry also concluded that Corporal Wright, of 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, could have been saved if a helicopter with a winch had been available.
Corporal Wright??s parents set up the Mark Wright Project to help veterans, but have since stripped the charity of his name amid accusations that it was not being run properly.
A Edinburgh rehabilitation centre for wounded servicemen, named after Corporal Wright in 2009, also dropped the name in 2011 and is now known as the Personnel Recovery Centre Edinburgh, part of the Ministry of Defence??s UK-wide network of rehab units.
Mr Wright said they were now working with the Lodge St Clair masonic lodge in Edinburgh to raise funds which would pay for veterans to complete university degrees once they leave the military.
He added that work was also underway to create a rugby tournament in Corporal Wright??s memory which would raise funds for veterans.
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