ROSE Gentle spent the night before her son’s funeral by his body in the bedroom of their Glasgow home.
The 19-year-old soldier was killed in Iraq in 2004 soon after basic training and his mother vowed to find out why he died.
Mrs Gentle has always pointed the finger of blame for Gordon’s death at then-prime minister Tony Blair, who snubbed her although she and other mothers slept in a tent outside Downing Street and handed in a letter calling for a meeting.
While it might be 18 years since she lost her son, she says the grief never goes away and there is always something to shake her and other grieving families to the core.
Waking up to the New Year Honours news has left her devastated at the knighthood elevating the former PM to Sir Tony.
Mrs Gentle is now calling on him to refuse his knighthood.
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Mrs Gentle said she was in shock when she learned the news and after it began to sink in she felt disgusted and was left questioning what asking what her son Gordon’s life meant.
Gordon, from Pollok, died after a bomb planted by the side of a road in Basra detonated as his Land Rover passed.
Private Gentle, who served with the Royal Highland Fusiliers, was straight out of basic training when he died in June, 2004. He had been been sent to Iraq with only 26 weeks’ training.
Mrs Gentle said: “I feel this is a slap in the face for me and all the families who lost someone in Iraq. What did our sons’ lives mean?
“The families’ sacrifices mean nothing to Blair.”
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Mr Blair became Sir Tony after he was appointed by the Queen to the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British Order of Chivalry.
And yesterday Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Blair had earned a knighthood but Boris Johnson hasn’t.
The UK Labour leader defended his predecessor’s knighthood in the New Year honours, despite a petition demanding it be rescinded attracting almost 600,000 supporters. The honour has led to a backlash over taking the UK into the Iraq War.
Mrs Gentle, 58, is now calling on the former prime minister to refuse the honour.
The grieving mum added: “This has got to be stopped. I don’t see why he should have this honour – for what? Taking our boys? And now the current Labour leader has come out in support.
“I want Blair to refuse the honour. I have added my name to the 600,000-strong petition and will be contacting my local MPs and MSPs to have this raised at both parliaments.”
After her son’s death, Mrs Gentle set up Military Families Against the War, the Justice 4 Gordon Gentle campaign.
In 2008, a coroner ruled that an army logistics failure meant that electronic jamming equipment which should have been fitted to Gordon’s vehicle would probably have prevented the explosion.
In 2016, an inquiry found Sir Tony had presented the case for war with “a certainty which was not justified” based on “flawed” intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
The Chilcot Report concluded that, at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein did not pose an urgent threat to British interests and that intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction was presented with unwarranted certainty.
“Time doesn’t mean anything to me,” added Mrs Gentle. “It might be 18 years on, but I still wake up every morning without my son.
“Nothing really surprises me now. You always think we can’t be hurt anymore and that we are at the end and then something like this happens and we just can’t move on.”
The longest-serving Labour premier said it was an “immense honour” to have been made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British Order of Chivalry, to which appointments are in the Queen’s gift without advice from government.
Sir Tony said he was “deeply grateful” to the Queen, adding: “It was a great privilege to serve as prime minister and I would like to thank all those who served alongside me, in politics, public service and all parts of our society, for their dedication and commitment to our country.”
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