Old Dovorian Arianne Raistrick (1995-2002), now known as Lieutenant Arianne Raistrick, addressed Dover College pupils and parents during Remembrance Sunday...

"Good morning!

For those of you that do not know me, my name is Lt Arianne Raistrick and I used to be a pupil here at Dover College from 1995-2002.

I remember leaving and thinking - thank goodness I don't have to do any more of those chapel services! Yet here I am once again hoping that whatever I say is interesting enough to keep you focused.

Once I left DC I went to Liverpool University to study for a degree in History. For me, University was definitely a life experience and not a work experience, probably explaining why my bank account has yet to recover!

However, whilst at university I joined the officers training corp where my interest in the Army grew. It was there that I passed the necessary selections and joined Sandhurst in January 2006.

I commissioned into the Royal Logistics Corp December of that year and was posted into 13 Air Assault Support Regiment at Colchester. There I took up my role as a troop commander in charge of over 50 soldiers.

In early March this year we deployed to Afghanistan and I took up my new role in Regimental Ops, planning the convoys and operations and making decisions that would affect the lives of over 50 soldiers.

I returned in September this year and am currently on a promotion course at Warminster to get my third pip as a Captain.

Now, all that I say today is my opinion, not MOD opinion or Army doctrine, but based upon what I have seen, heard and my experiences.

You are all intelligent young men and women, capable of making your own judgements. This is purely mine.

For me the war in Afghanistan is a confusing one, with no apparent ultimate aim. Are we there to defeat the Taliban and work on a counter insurgency problem? Are we there to help stabilise the government after all they asked us to come into their country to help them? Are we there for reconstruction and development replacing and improving what they have or need or are we there to disrupt the opium trade? Some days you can easily find yourself on an operation involved in all of the above, on others it can be none.

It takes faith to continue every day when you do not know the end state. How do you know if you are succeeding? How do you know if you are making a difference?

It is a bit like many of you - I would imagine – picking or doing your GCSE's or A Levels – but not really knowing what you want to do with your lives. You sit there and hope that one day you will need that equation that you have spent two days figuring out how to solve – or two weeks if your maths is anything like mine! Or if the decision to take one subject over another is the right choice or not. Ultimately it boils down to faith.

Faith that you have been guided the right way by your teachers and parents, faith that they know what they are talking about and faith that you can make your choices count and fit into whatever course of action you settle on.

Afghanistan is much like that. On a daily basis every solider out there puts their life on the line, in the faith that they are doing the right thing, the good thing.

They put their faith in their superiors – that they know what they are doing and equally as a superior I put my faith in them and that they can execute that plan in the way that I have directed. All the best wills in the world can create a masterpiece but given to some one that does not know how to do their job is a pointless act.

They put their faith in the men and women that they work with, because ultimately that is who will save their lives and they put their faith in the belief that every day they make a difference to the lives of the Afghan people.

Statistics will show that in the last three years we have reduced the Taliban's hold from 56 provinces to as little as 12. Yet until you see the people who live there, does it really mean anything?

Working in the business of convoys delivering essential supplies meant that my regiment drove through miles of Helmand province and through the surrounding villages.

On a daily basis we saw the difference that we made to people's lives. Through improvements to the infrastructure, to the simplest of things like giving them pen and paper when the children came up to the vehicles to wave.

For Afghan people, live is simple and I found it quite humbling to see the way that they live. They have no mod-cons, few have television, many have no electricity yet they will happily share what they have with you. Many simply wish for someone to prevent the enemy from taking that away from them. It is faith that they have in us to make their country a safer, better place for them.

70 years ago servicemen put the same faith in their superiors; workmates and an end state that, though slightly clearer that today's wars still left room for doubt.

We honour those soldiers on days like today. I hope, with the realisation that men and women are still making the same sacrifices everyday as they did back then.

Faith such as this takes an enormous amount of courage. It is no ordinary person that willingly puts their life on the line for the benefit of others. I never really got it. Sitting here on previous Remembrance Sundays I remember thinking – yes, men died for our country – and it was astounding and saddening – but two or three days later something more important came and along and it was forgotten.

Men are still dying for this country and now for other countries in which we have no greater agenda than to simply help. And that is because we, as an Army, believe in doing the right thing. The best that we can in any given situation.

For me nowadays, Remembrance Sunday is not just sitting in church remembering granddads, but remembering men and women who have served with me and for me - that died doing a job that they loved. A job that they believed in and a job that makes a difference."