Op Banner photos - some memories for the old and bold

[Whiskybreath]

it's a dirty dangerous business, and it's best that realisation should come to you only on the first occasion that you're exposed to it?

It did seem to be a bit silly, and very Politically Correct, not that the term was in use at the time, but the sentiment was in the birth canal, so to speak. When ATOs, WIS and cordon chaps got their first sight and smell of the results of a PIRA operation (it still feels wrong to call them that) the personal effects could be fairly awful; they certainly were for me.

This isn't the place to go into all of that, but there's no doubt that the ghastly VD videos (Vietnam etc), horror pictures from PIRA own-goals, slaughtering sheep in E&E training etc give at least a veneer of objectivity to dealing with the sort of scene that any soldier has to deal with. More recent conflicts have ensured that (real) PTSD rates are very high, and it wouldn't surprise me that a great many of those cases weren't properly inoculated before the event.

Any Police force has to deal with it on a career-long basis. I'm sure that their academies do a thorough grounding before chucking the baby coppers onto the street; a number of old RUC grunts of my acquaintance were particularly undisturbed by that sort of scene (SOCOs; disgustingly sexist, racist, prejudiced in every normal way and drinkers of rough poteen).

 

[RangdoOfArg]

Whiskybreath, I think there maybe something in that, but that’s not how it always works. We all have a breaking point, we just don’t know where it is until we break it. Some tough guys never make it. Some tough people can breach that point when it overloads. You just don’t know when it may occur.
As a copper, a very strong and capable traffic officer came to our nick, asked for a hug (my colleague obliged) and to sit down in an unoccupied room for a bit. Then went back to work. Second fatality involving a child in a week. And she was as tough as they came.
No one quite knows when that point may come.

 

[Whiskybreath]

Whiskybreath, I think there maybe something in that, but that’s not how it always works. We all have a breaking point, we just don’t know where it is until we break it. Some tough guys never make it. Some tough people can breach that point when it overloads. You just don’t know when it may occur.
As a copper, a very strong and capable traffic officer came to our nick, asked for a hug (my colleague obliged) and to sit down in an unoccupied room for a bit. Then went back to work. Second fatality involving a child in a week. And she was as tough as they came.
No one quite knows when that point may come.

You may be right, but you may also have missed the essential point in my post above, which is that inoculation is a good thing. Ask Samoa.

 

[RangdoOfArg]

You may be right, but you may also have missed the essential point in my post above, which is that inoculation is a good thing. Ask Samoa.

Dunno. We may never know. I grew up around fishing and shooting, but never got used to trauma in a human.

 

[Whiskybreath]

...incidentally, 'tough' isn't any part of the equation, as neither is 'rough', 'heavily muscled' or 'iron-jawed'. I have all of those attributes, particularly a steely midriff, but they have never made a significant difference to my essentially compassionate attitude toward the suffering and violent, painful deaths of my fellow man. Or sheep.

Legal: Some of the above has been modified by my PR consultant. E&OE.

 

[Stonker]

The precise view held by many JRs of their Ruperts.

Only the vernacular varies.

The body language is petty universal.

But they only teach posh body language at the mostvexpensive skules,

 

[ugly]

Of course it was TPTP but I used 'inert' to include those not aware of the weapon. I wonder if it is still remembered here about the Marine ar Girdwood Park that had a 'Negligent discharge' with a TPTP. They were warming up prior to tackling car bombs in their area. As I remember there were no injuries as a result of the ND.

Not an ND, they meant to pull the trigger, it was an ammunition cock up!

 

[Stonker]

Alternatively, they had never seen someone so ugly with just one head.

In Woking?

That would describe most of the townsfolk!

 

[Stonker]

Not an ND, they meant to pull the trigger, it was an ammunition cock up!

Indeed so.

The instructor had just uttered the words "on pulling the trigger, you will hear a loud click"

 

[overopensights]

Not an ND, they meant to pull the trigger, it was an ammunition cock up!

Ugly, I can't see how that can happen?

 

[ugly]

Ugly, I can't see how that can happen?

Really?
I'm sure the Emporer was ammo storeman that day when the Bootnecks asked for a practice round instead of a drill round! Wah shield on loan to the MoD upgrading Ch2 thread!

 

[BopBopBop]

Ugly, I can't see how that can happen?

I heard someone was told to get a drill round but came back with practice ammo.

edit..snap

Might have been one of those urban myths, that a bloke was laying back on his bed reading a newspaper and the round passed through the paper.

 

[Berlin_104s]

Talking of PIRA own goals, when I was on a NIRTT course I remember getting told about an incident where they intended to carry out a hit using an RPG-7 fired from inside a car (in order to facilitate their subsequent escape). Unfortunately - so the story went - they forgot to take into account the back blast and also forgot to open the windows which resulted in them burning to death rather quickly. Did anyone else hear of this?

I'm not disputing the truth of it but have always been curious as to the details.

 

[beefer]

Ugly, I can't see how that can happen?

It happened to the Booties when the instructor told one of his bods to “go and draw a practice round” when what he should have said was “go and draw a drill round”

I arrived in NI just after the spire of the church in Kinawley had taken a hit in this instance. April ‘79

 

[overopensights]

Really?
I'm sure the Emporer was ammo storeman that day when the Bootnecks asked for a practice round instead of a drill round! Wah shield on loan to the MoD upgrading Ch2 thread!

My argument is that the chap loading it would have recognized the difference in the rounds? surely.

 

[ugly]

My argument is that the chap loading it would have recognized the difference in the rounds? surely.

Well obviously he was wearing EM issued specs!

 

[beefer]

My argument is that the chap loading it would have recognized the difference in the rounds? surely.

Five years INF and I only fired the CG once, and if I recall correctly that was sub-cal. Never clapped eyes on a TPTP round.

“Hello Sir - my, what a pretty purple cloak you’re wearing...

 

[rickshaw-major]

My argument is that the chap loading it would have recognized the difference in the rounds? surely.

Having investigated ammunition incidents you would be surprised at the amount of stupidity going around. And not only at Pte/Gnr/Tpr level either.

 

[BopBopBop]

At one of the fixed VCP's near Armagh a rupert was considering the deployment of CG in one of the sangers until it was pointed out there might have been a bit of backblast and the sanger was actually inside the rocket fence.

 

[LEGZ30]

At one of the fixed VCP's near Armagh a rupert was considering the deployment of CG in one of the sangers until it was pointed out there might have been a bit of backblast and the sanger was actually inside the rocket fence.

I took over a PVCP in Fermanagh from a unit that had their entire stock of RLG in the fighting sangar, which had a rocket fence.