Tank Museum - Battlegroup Afghanistan

We’re asked quite often to make sure that panels don’t have too much text on them – at the Tank Museum we didn’t have to compose a single word! What few words do appear on graphics are quotes from soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

The whole exhibition is set within a reconstruction forward operating base (or FOB) complete with sleeping areas, briefing room, mess area, outside loo! Key vehicles being used in the conflict are also on display.  Accompanying graphic backdrops and numerous pieces of AV footage and sound recordings tell the soldiers’ real life stories.

It is the evocative, first-hand accounts from those on the front line in Afghanistan that gives this exhibition such power. Films and audio pieces – all unscripted. Loneliness, happiness, fear – the soldiers tell it like it is.  Nothing is cut. It leaves a lump in the throat.