WE'VE ALWAYS HELPED HEROES
THE Sun has always campaigned for those who protect us.
In 2007 there was a public outpouring of grief as the bodies of British soldiers were being flown home from Afghanistan and Iraq almost daily.
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Away from the public gaze, hundreds of servicemen and women were also returning with life-changing injuries.
In October 2007, we highlighted the work of a tiny new charity called Help for Heroes and asked Sun readers to help raise £8.5million for a swimming pool to aid their recovery.
Princes William and Harry supported the campaign and wore the distinctive blue and red Help for Heroes wristbands. Your response was phenomenal.
With the support of The Sun, nearly £300million has been raised by the public for Help for Heroes.
The charity has helped more than 22,000 of our troops and their families, but research suggests tens of thousands more are still in need of aid.
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Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff of the Army and President of the charity, said: “I offer my thanks to the readers of The Sun and to everyone who stands with Help for Heroes.”
The year after Help for Heroes launched, Prince Charles suggested The Sun host an awards ceremony for our Armed Forces. In the last decade The Sun Military Awards — dubbed the Millies — has recognised the astonishing heroism of our forces.
And when the 2017 New Year’s Honours failed to include an award for George “Johnny”, the last surviving Dambuster, we launched a petition on change.org.
More than a third of a million readers signed up, demanding an award for Johnny, now 97. As a result, he received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2017.
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We campaigned — and won — freedom for paratrooper Lee Clegg, who had been jailed for life in 1991 for shooting dead a passenger in a joyrider’s car which crashed through an Army roadblock in Belfast.
More than two million people believed Private Clegg was simply doing his duty by opening fire on the car and sent letters protesting against his sentence. Private Clegg was released in July 1995.
His wife Amanda said: “I can’t thank Sun readers enough. Until the campaign was launched, Lee was just rotting in jail. Nobody seemed to care.”
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