All too often, not far from us here in Bristol, a small Wiltshire town comes to a standstill to pay its respects.

On Friday Wotton Bassett fell silent again as five hearses, each carrying the body of a British soldier, were driven slowly along the High Street, the stillness greeting the cortege only broken by the solemn toll of a bell.

Hundreds lined the streets – they included friends and family of the dead, army colleagues and local people who just know it is the right thing to do to be there. It is an incredibly moving scene that has been played out too many times already.

What made Friday even more poignant was that, as Wotton Bassett mourned, Britain suffered its darkest 24 hours yet in the war on the Taliban.

A further eight servicemen were killed, another eight families' lives were torn apart as Operation Panther's Claw in Helmand Province continued into another bloody week. A week when the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan surpassed the total of those who lost their lives in Iraq, a grim yet significant landmark.

I read a quote this weekend that really made me stop and think. It came from an unnamed soldier who'd just returned from the front line in Helmand.

I paraphrase but the gist of his view was that the men he was fighting alongside didn't really care about the future of Afghanistan or the big political picture, they just cared about keeping each other alive.

Whether his view is widely held among British troops is impossible to verify but it is unnerving nevertheless. It also brought into focus the criticism from one grieving military father, that troops are being sent to fight without the protection they deserve.

According to Ian Sadler who's son Jack was killed by a roadside bomb in December 2007, soldiers lives are being put at unnecessary risk because they're forced to put up with inadequate equipment. If true, it's a scandal.

Gordon Brown defended the Afghanistan strategy yesterday claiming that despite a "dangerous battle" ahead' it was the best way to prevent terrorism in the UK.

That is difficult to judge. It is true that since the July 7 attacks in London more than four years ago, mercifully there hasn't been a single, successful atrocity here. But is that evidence that our actions in Afghanistan are working? Maybe, but not necessarily.

Predictably the Stop the War coalition are calling for an immediate troop withdrawal but is that the answer?

Surely leaving now would lead to a bigger bloodbath in Afghanistan? It would allow the Taliban the power and freedom to exact violent reprisals on those left behind and plot terrible revenge on those who departed without finishing the "job".

In other words, it is likely they would target us and the Americans, although of course that might happen anyway.

Whatever your original views, it is difficult not to conclude now that we have a duty to see the military objectives through – even though every day the cost of this campaign becomes more difficult to bear.

But we certainly shouldn't be asking our men and women to fight in the unforgiving theatre of Helmand without the very best equipment and the very best protection.

And what if we'd never gone in the first place? Well, unfortunately that is an irrelevant question – although one thing is certain, Wootton Bassett wouldn't be nearly as well known as it is today.