My wife’s cousin trained as an army medic and was recently injured in a car bomb in Afghanistan.

The bomb shattered his leg, breaking his fibula and tibia; he also dislocated his elbow and shoulder and suffered numerous other serious ‘puncture wound’ injuries.

With the remains of the vehicle still on fire around him, he reset his broken leg and pulled his comrades to safety, clearing the airway of his sergeant who was unconscious.

Under fire, the group waited to be saved. A helicopter was dispatched and was duly shot down. This was their attackers’ real aim, they were merely a carrot being tangled to their would-be rescuers.

Michael did make it to safety and now sits in a hospital bed in the midlands, where a year of physiotherapy awaits him.

At the age of 22, he is still hoping that his career is not over.

When we first heard that he had been injured Michael’s father was given the bare facts: that his son had been involved in a roadside bomb.

For the next few hours he did not even know if his son was alive. He was then told he was being operated on but was not told the extent of the injuries.

These are the kind of harrowing experiences that families across the UK and US are left facing every day.

And while it is the last word I would choose to sum up Michael’s situation, some are not as lucky as he is.

The war continues to draw critics and Gordon Brown continues to make a mess out of the political storm it is creating. But let us leave the politics alone for now.

Away from the controversy, smoke, mirrors and scandal a lot of people seem to have trouble remembering that there are real people fighting this war for us.

We watch the news, we hear the figures, we read the names and see the coffins flown home to their loved ones and then switch off.

For some it is almost like watching a war movie. But this is real.

And when it gets a little too real some people do not like it.

In America a news agency has been criticised for releasing a disturbing image of a soldier lying fatally wounded. If you have not seen the photograph it is about as real as the war gets and was taken seconds after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Its release has divided opinion in America.

The agency in question, Associated Press (AP), did show the image to Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard’s family, but vitally, did not ask their permission to publish it.

Having taken the photograph, AP is under no obligation to request their permission, but in these circumstances, it may well have been the correct thing to do.

As such US defence secretary Robert Gates has condemned AP’s decision and, although I can understand the furore the publishing of this photograph has created, I welcome the debate.

For many – not everyone – the war has been about the money, the oil, Bush and Blair and now Brown and Barack.

All that is relevant, but it is irrelevant when a family finds out a loved one has died in this conflict. Because back it or loathe it, the war will continue for many more years and many more committed young men and women will die.

AP has been accused of showing a ‘lack of compassion and common sense’ by the US Government, but I suspect it is angry because this photograph has made the war real to millions of Americans. Suddenly those who have likened this conflict to a Tom Hanks war epic have realised it is much, much worse than that. They now know that whatever happens there will be no happy ending.

This upsetting photograph says so much more about the war than any Government report, speech or news article.

After being criticised, AP released a statement saying it decided to make the image public because ‘it coveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it’.

In the background discussions continue about weapons, soldier safety and the amount of money being spent per person in Afghanistan. This is a photograph Barack and Brown could have done without.

It is easy to argue with other political parties about the money being spent or to discuss the weapons and mediocre defence being afforded to our soldiers, but what happens when the public at large really starts to take an interest for the first time since that mass protest? What happens when the public sees how many soldiers have been killed, takes the figure in and finally asks: ‘Is it worth it?’ What happens when something catches the attention more so than the funerals, parades or endless news feeds about another soldier being killed?

What happens when the war gets real for the millions of people who seemed happy to discuss statistics as the casualty count increased?

We might be about to find out.

Last month a real editorial stalwart died.

Frank Branston founded his own group of newspapers in Bedfordshire with £9,000 and a £5,000 bank loan in 1977.

In 2002, having sold his newspaper group he became the first elected mayor of Bedford, standing as an independent.

He was editor and chairman when I joined his newspaper group as a junior reporter in 1997. His newspapers had a certain ethos, best summed up by the man himself, who was recently quoted as saying: “Many newspaper publishers consider editorial to be a nuisance, especially when it annoys advertisers.

“We proved the opposite; that news, vigorous comment and humour are the saviour of newspapers, not their undertaker.”

He wanted the truth, regardless of who it upset, and what a time it was to be a young reporter learning the ropes.

When I was covering the mid Bedfordshire patch and I can remember him walking over and reading a press release that was on my desk. The story behind the PR jargon was quite good so he told me to read it again before taking it back, screwing it up and throwing it in the bin. As he did so, he said: “Now go and get the real story.”

It was about Maulden Mausoleum and after a bit of digging it ended up on the front page. Without his ‘advice’ the article would have been no more than a short towards the back of the newspaper.

Frank will be sorely missed, but his style will ensure that many who worked under him will attempt to keep his editorial tradition going.