Your Eco CEO featured in Op TELIC, 15 years on with Royal British Legion: “Most of all it was about service.”
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On 22 May 2026, the Royal British Legion marked 15 years since the end of the Iraq War (Operation TELIC) with a national remembrance event at the National Memorial Arboretum. The Legion brought together veterans, families, the bereaved and currently serving personnel, with a commemorative service at the Armed Forces Memorial paying tribute to everyone impacted by the conflict and to the 179 British Armed Forces personnel who lost their lives.
As part of that national moment of reflection, Nick Spicer CEO of Your Eco and a former Army officer was invited to share his own story.
In Nick’s words, it was an incredible gathering put on by the Royal British Legion where I was asked to tell my own story as part of this national event.
Feature video of Nick Spicer on the closing of Op TELIC.
A day that meant something different to everyone
Nick described the atmosphere at the Arboretum as both uplifting and deeply personal.
With perfect conditions and on a sunny Friday at the start of the bank holiday,he wrote, you could see this meant so much to so many, and in so many different ways. It was poignant and it was meaningful, each person having their own story.
That’s the reality of remembrance: it isn’t one narrative. It’s thousands of individual experiences of those who deployed, those who waited at home, those who supported, and those who lost.
Remembering isn’t only for those who served
A key theme in Nick’s reflections is that events like this are as much for families as they are for veterans.
This was not just an event for those who deployed to Iraq, but as much for the family and spouses of those who served and especially in the case of those those 179 service men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Nick also made a point of acknowledging the people who carry the weight quietly the partners and families who become the steady centre of gravity through deployments, uncertainty, and the long tail of service.
We give thanks to all those who served but also those who were our own pillars of strength as indeed Amanda was and always has been my own.
“In short, the last ones out.”
Nick’s own service in Iraq came at a pivotal moment.
He shared that he was a commander in the last combat unit off the ground in Iraq, serving in Baghdad in 2009 as the conflict came to an official end. In short, the last ones out.
That phrase the last ones out lands heavily. It speaks to the responsibility of closing a chapter, and the strange, quiet intensity of leaving when the mission is ending but the risks are still real.
Nick referenced a recent news article describing the final extraction:
“The Captain from the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment was one of the last men to leave Iraq in July 2009 after handing over his weapons and leaving on a Hercules from Baghdad Airport.”
“We were supposed to be extracted safely by helicopters, but a sandstorm stopped play to that and we had to stay at an outpost base in Baghdad,” he says.
“We were eventually picked up in the middle of the night by an American convoy and driven in darkness to the Baghdad International Airport airport where a Hercules was waiting.”
It’s a vivid reminder that even the final moments of a campaign can be uncertain, improvised, and tense and that the stories veterans carry are often made up of details like these.
The point wasn’t the war. It was the people.
Nick was clear that the day brought back so many memories, but his focus wasn’t on reliving events for their own sake.
There are so many memories it brought back for myself and so many to unpack, but most of all it was about service.
And, crucially, it was about the people he served with.
That and with the most incredible people I had the privilege of knowing and serving alongside in Alma company at the time.
Why this matters 15 years on
The Legion’s event page puts it plainly: We remember how much we ask of our Armed Forces; and we acknowledge their dedication to service.
Nick’s reflections bring that statement to life not as a slogan, but as lived experience.
He closed with gratitude and a simple purpose:
Thank you both and indeed all for making this an occasion for us to stop and reflect, on all that went before us in Iraq.
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