Originally Posted by choff

And here we have a fork in the road.

I applaude the young Capt for writing what he feels is right in such an eloquent manner and undoubtedly knowing it will likely get him sacked. I smile like a Cheshire cat when i think of the harumphing going on amongst the ranks of overly paid MPs because someone has dared accused them of falling short (despite the fact they have, they do and will continue to do so).

Omegahunter has a point though, the author may have undermined his CoC and instilled a bit of doubt in the minds of soldiers deployed on Op HERRICK. I do like to think that he has done so to increase publice awareness of the realities of war and not to get himself a newspaper column.

Only one person knows the answer to that.

But How..? SNLR? Might not be a good idea. If his Unit refuses to start SNLR action has MoD got the balls to try forcing it themselves? Given the current bad press I'd be running a mile from suggesting doing anything this side of an Election.

Does anything in Queens' Req give MoD anything with which they can Court Martial him? Because that's what it will need.

And. As a JNCO, I have more respect for an Officer who has the balls to say the truth to anybody, rather than the medal chasing turds I've seen, regardless of who they are.

Medal chasing turds?

Lets hope that no one thinks that of you big fella ;)

The fact is that liaising or conversing with an media body without the express permission of the CoC is likely to lead to courts martial as Gen Jackson put out a letter stating this in the none too distant past.

It's career suicide I'd say. The piece conveys everything that is wrong. The clearing of bits and pieces from IED'd vehicles is something not covered by the Wootton Basset demonstration brigade.
I wish that gallant officer every bit of good luck going.

I suspect this gentleman* knows what he is up to and may be close enough to his exit date for the risk of public exposure not to make a difference.

MoD and the Army CoC will surely consider whether it is in their interest to identify and discipline the officer, bearing in mind the risk of increasing his media exposure and public platform versus the possible benefit of pour encourager les autres.

It's worth bearing in mind that ministers, most latterly Quentin Davies, are happy to take the private views of personnel for granted and to claim in public that there is 100% personal support amongst the troops with regard to equipment and morale etc. This goes beyond the requirement for obedience and uses soldiers (etc) as political props. The view of this captain is also a private view, expressed in public. Quite right too.

*(or even lady...gender is unclear and plenty of females near the sharp end as we have seen)

Just finished reading the story. If ever there was a well thought out, honest and from the guts account that might sway someone to do something positive in a well managed democracy then this would be it. Sadly, I no longer believe that we live in such an entity and do not hold out much hope for an improvement in the status quo for some time to come.

Gone are the days whjen our political masters acted on personal belief and doctrine. We are now managed by spin and focus group. Doctrine and personal belief may not have been 'on message' and did produce occasionally de-stabilising swings from left to right but at least politicians were not afraid to speak their own minds and most had had some direct experience of service in the forces.

There have never been 'good old days' of politics but at least in the past if there was enough moral outrage in the general public that a minister would step down if he/ she really cocked up or, they had the balls to do it themselves. Nowadays, ministers are only available for the media when there is good news or, they throw a junior minion to the lions when the sh!t hits the fan. They have no honour, we have no respect for them. Good on you Sir, whoever you are!

There appear to be a couple of parallels to Wilfred Owen here, both were officers who spoke out about the wars they were fighting, were it not for Owen's MC he would probably been Court Martialled because of the sentiments contained in his poetry. He had misgivings but continued to lead and inspire his men, there are no indications so far that this is not the case with this officer.
That he has not acted in a soldierly fashion, in the manner in which he has made his feelings known, is quite apparent but there are those that would say that drastic situations require drastic actions.
New Labour will never forgive him for the helicopter remarks and it will certainly foreshorten his career if they get their way. However, this is an Army matter not an MoD matter and certainly not a Government matter. By circumventing the CoC this officer will have embarrassed his superiors within the Army and I should imagine they will be less than pleased about this.
Of course the CoC and everyone else apart from the Government may well be secretly pleased that once more the subject of helicopter support in theatre is brought to the fore to reinforce what the CoC have been saying and this from the horses mouth as it were.
I shouldn't worry about what deductions may or may not have been made on here as to this officer's persec. I'm sure that the MoD are more than capable of reading the article and drawing the same conclusions as have been mooted on here, it doesn't take a genius, after all.
Every man has the right to ask himself 'Is it worth it?' If the answer is no and he can find no part of his current situation to motivate him then he will probably resign of his own accord as soon as he is able to do so. However if he looks about him and sees good, honest soldiers doing what soldiers have been doing for hundreds of years and if he feels that he can apply some of the knowledge he has gained from his time in the forces to lead, inspire and direct his men to get the best out of themselves and to be true to themselves, their ideals and comrades and keep as safe as is possible within the exigencies of active service then I would suggest that, in that context, yes, very much yes, it is worth it.

Is it just me, or is part of the problem that some of the journalism isn't up to scratch. Other than the ever excellent Michael Yon - who seems to be operating on charity and a shoe-string - everyone seems to be working for big national newspapers or broadcasters, they need to keep reasonably sweet with the MOD because what are you going to do if you get kicked out of Bastion and don't get any embeds?

I know from time to time a spot of journo kicking is a great sport but I'm sure that truly impartial reporting from the front line would be making similar points to this punchy piece thereby not requiring the good Captain's extreme measures. The situation at the moment whereby MPs parrot what soldiers and officers tell them on visits (under plenty of watchful eyes), that everything is good, while ignoring what everyone knows, that everything is not good, can't go on. The Independent, for all its faults, seems to be leading a bit of a charge on this. First Rifleman Thatcher's letters home (not a dry eye in the house) and now this. When one reads Mark Evison's diaries as well a picture builds up which is so at odds with the 'official' one that it can't be ignored.

I'd like to think that efforts to identify the author will be somewhat deliberately lax, he's done something which I'm sure a lot of more senior people would love to be able to do and hopefully put a bit of pressure on the sort of people who could use a kick up the obvious. As for the suggestion that anonymously highlighting concerns and overlooked realities somehow makes him or her any less fit to lead, I should have thought the opposite is true.

Originally Posted by Glad_its_all_over

Originally Posted by omegahunter

Negativity builds negativity; if we don't believe that we can win this one, then we won't.

A useful start would be to have the desired end state defined. My limited understanding is that military operations should only ever be undertaken in support of clearly defined objectives and that someone, somewhere, should maintain focus on the strategy (oh, look, everyone, someone said it).

Absent a clear statement of what it is hoped will be achieved (and an accompanying impression of what means and investment it is planned to use), it's pretty damn hard to see how we will go about deciding when we've won.

Of course, I'm an ageing civvy now and my military career was both long and inglorious, so I'll happily defer to anyone who can point me at some sort of clear strategic intent articulated by anyone from the political end of the equation.

Absolutely. I was taught, a while back now, the Mnemonic "AiM of Access"

selection and maintenance of the AIM
maintenance of MORALE

You can bitch to your seniors, that you need xyz to do a mission, but you shouldn't bitch to your juniors, that you don't have xyz to do the mission.

[quote="omegahunter"]

Originally Posted by Glad_its_all_over

Originally Posted by omegahunter

Negativity builds negativity; if we don't believe that we can win this one, then we won't.

selection and maintenance of the AIM
maintenance of MORALE

You can bitch to your seniors, that you need xyz to do a mission, but you shouldn't bitch to your juniors, that you don't have xyz to do the mission.

Yeah, because you might just give them a clue that they are about to get killed, are not valued enough to be issued the right equipment and oh, yes, it's just not on to let the men know the truth, don't you know!!

Originally Posted by choff

Medal chasing turds?

Lets hope that no one thinks that of you big fella ;)

The fact is that liaising or conversing with an media body without the express permission of the CoC is likely to lead to courts martial as Gen Jackson put out a letter stating this in the none too distant past.

Just one particular Officer...or maybe two, or might be three..

Fair enough, long as the Order in question was reissued under the soon to be old boss and reissued again under the incoming Boss!

It strikes me that this particular unnamed officer doesn't care.

I'd also add that if this embrasses any senior officer then they're been hiding somewhere for the last year without any newspapers, TV, radio or internet. Or any visiting reporters.