The young Trooper in the Tank Regiment had lost a leg while serving in Basra. Alone, frightened and homesick, one of the things he needed most was his loving family. ABF made a subsistence grant enabling his parents to stay with him during his treatment at Selly Oak Hospital.

Afganistan was where the Royal Artillery soldier was so severely wounded, and Selly Oak Hospital was where he was sent for specialist medical treatment. The needs of this extraordinarily disabled young man were enormous, and to help cover various incidental costs, the AFB arranged a grant of 1,000 pounds.

And for another Afganistan veteran—a Sergeant from the Parachute Regiment—AFB made a grant of 5,000 pounds toward special adaptations for a vehicle that would allow him some mobility.

She was just an infant when her Royal Engineer father was killed in Bosnia. Her distraught mother committee suicide in 2000, leaving the girl to be raised by a grandmother in South Shields. Finances are tight, so the AFB contributes toward the tuition in the school that meets her special needs. Her story, though sad, is only one story. AFB assists approximately twenty-five children of service personnel whose special family reasons make boarding education necessary.

The cottage near Alnwick was their dream home. Yes, it needed extensive renovation, but they were willing and able to work hard. Then the husband, a former REME craftsman, died suddenly leaving no insurance. His widow, trying to manage with four children, the youngest just six, and a house with major projects unfinished, felt barely able to cope. AFB stepped in with money to help buy construction materials.

Her husband, a WWII sapper, was captured at Dunkirk and spent the next five years as a POW in Poland. His health was ruined and his gallant wife supported him until he died in 1966. At age eighty-eight, disabled and with no living relatives, she desperately needed safe and adequate bathing facilities. An ABF grant helped make that a reality.