Two stories, featuring two Irish names. One is of a girl called Jessica Lynch from West Virginia.
She joins the US army, is sent to Iraq in a support unit, which is ambushed. She is injured when the vehicle in which she is travelling crashes; some of her colleagues are killed. She doesn't fire a shot. She is taken to a hospital by her captors, with extensive but non-life-threatening injuries.
She is cared for well in the hospital. Her Iraqi doctor likes her and protects her, though she is in no danger from Iraqi soldiers, who anyway have withdrawn from the hospital grounds. A lawyer working in the hospital goes to US troops not far away and reports the presence of Pte Lynch in the hospital. That night, US Special Forces arrive with cameras and record the unopposed removal of Pte Lynch, who initially hides under the bedclothes when the US soldiers arrive. Her only words are a tearful "I wanna go home". She gets her wish. She goes home. And that's the Lynch story.
Here's the other story. There's a talented, working-class, chess-playing youngster in Dublin called Ian Malone. In his teenage years he joins the FCA, but he never settles to any ordinary job. He tries to join the Defence Forces, but is told that at 21 he is too old. There are two other military options. One is to join the French Foreign Legion, the other the Irish Guards in the British army.
He seeks the advice of his parish priest. They discuss it for an hour, and they agree. The Irish Guards makes more sense. The Malone boy goes off and enlists, and a month later the priest gets a letter from him - a letter, not an e-mail, or a text-message or a phone call, but an old fashioned letter - saying that he has made the right decision. Soldiering is for him. He is a courteous man. He even sends the priest a Christmas card every year; and the card is always religious.
Soon after, another non-Briton joins the regiment. He is a Catholic Matabele from Zimbabwe. Maybe he joined the Irish Guards because he had met Irish missionaries. He is obsessed with Irish war-pipes and rapidly becomes the best piper in the regiment. His ambition is to lead the Irish Guards down the Mall before the queen.
He and Guardsman Malone become friends, and the Irishman takes up the pipes. Just as he is a born soldier, he is a natural piper as well. Their regiment is operationally busy and the two of them do much soldiering before they are sent to Iraq.
At about the same time as Pte Lynch is heading into the desert and captivity, the two Irish Guardsmen are practising Irish traditional tunes on their chanters, playing them backwards and forwards. It's more than musical diligence. They are steadying their nerves before going into action.
Their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle enters the heart of Basra. The doors open; and as the soldiers prepare to exit, a fedayeen fighter who has been pretending to be dead rises and fires into the back, hitting six Irish Guardsmen, instantly killing Guardsman Malone and his Zimbabwean friend.
Guardsman Malone is given a huge funeral in his native city. British soldiers in uniform are to be seen on the streets of Dublin for the first time in 81 years. The people of Ballyfermot turn out in their thousands to say goodbye to the local boy. A piper from the Irish Defence Forces joins a piper from the Irish Guards to perform at the funeral of their fellow-piper.
His funeral is marked by emotion, dignity and pride. The clergyman who advised him to become a guardsman gives a deeply touching, affectionate and very funny eulogy. He recalls the conversation about whether the dead man should join the Irish Guards or the Foreign Legion. Well, he says, they'd both seen the Laurel and Hardy films, so they knew how tough the Foreign Legion was. They agreed, the Irish Guards made more sense.
Guardsman Malone, he remembers, was an embodiment of that quality which is seldom spoken about these days. He was manly. Not macho. Manly.
The Catholic chaplain of the Brigade of Guards discusses the tortuous relationship between Britain and Ireland, with its good moments and its bad moments. And tragic though this occasion is, the coming together of so many people of different traditions at Guardsman Malone's funeral is, he says, unquestionably a good moment. He ends his sermon with the Irish Guards' motto: Quis Separabit. He is given an instant ovation.
Guardsman Malone thus goes to his grave an honoured man. But in Zimbabwe, the home of his dead piper friend is raided by the police; and his grieving mother's sister is gang-raped by them as punishment for the boy serving in an "imperialist" army.
There you have the two stories. One is a simple account of Jessica Lynch being hurt in an ambush, being well treated by her captors and then being rescued unopposed.
The other us a touching narrative of two young men, one black, one white, from different countries, who join a foreign army, who learn to play the Irish war-pipes, who practise Irish traditional music together, and who soldier together and who are killed in action together. Their deaths provide different parables. One is of ecumenism and harmony, with soldiers of two nations coming together to mourn a young man each has some claim on: and the other is of evil triumphant.
A multi-million dollar film is being made about one of these stories. Which one?