A is for Ah!...Summer Grasses...

...all that remains of the dreams of soldiers.

Things I've worn or been entitled to wear over the years - of a now distant youth!. With the exception of the two flaming sword patches which I swapped with a guy called Eddie from the 502nd Infantry at Clay Alley in the US sector when we went on a rappelling (abseiling out of the old UH1 Hueys) course down there. The Green '1' flash was issued to a higher command I was once a part of but years after I'd left the army and the German national flash came off the Bundeswehr surplus shirts we used to wear in the field because our WWII pattern woollen things were bloody awful!

The red '28' and the brass plate next to it are from the 'Old Guard' and are based on Wellingtonian uniforms of the Peninsular and Waterloo periods (when we explained to the French politely - to begin with - that we wouldn't be driving on the wrong side of the road!).

There is also a pre-'Royal' Hampshire cap-badge, we weren't supposed to wear them, but as they shined-up far better than the Hong Kong produced 'stay bright' a blind-eye tended to be turned toward them, likewise - once I was cross-posted to the Glosters I got hold of gunmetal front and back badges at the earliest opportunity!

The little red square is all that remains of my 'A' company sweatshirt!

P is for Parachute and Special Force Insignia

R is for Russian Cap and Lapel Stars

Almost Churchillian?...errr...

The Bridges of Wet County

"Just here please mate!"

I've been meaning to get these photographs up and have a rant about the flooding 'oop North, but have procrastinated to the point that five minutes after I finally loaded them tonight, there was an ominous announcement from the news on 4 that the army WERE building a bridge ( over the river Derwent in Workington) after all...I'd heard some reporter last week saying a bridge had been ruled out as they [the army] "only build bridges suitable for tanks, not cars or lorries"...yeh, exactly! So I was ready to pull this article when the report carried on to repeat the rumour and state they will only be building a footbridge!?!

A spokesman for the army repeated the fact that the WWII style 'Bailey' bridge capable of handling 70-ton tanks is not, that's; NOT suitable for civilian traffic.

Well, as I was researching hoglets on google (see Greenfingers blog - Now here somewhere [13/10/2012]), I thought I'd better look into this more closely before shooting my mouth off...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I can report that the 5th richest country in the world; Phew, beat the..., can't build a civilian road bridge with military hardware because...we're not that sure whether we can or not, and will err on the side of caution, even if they [the Whitehall mandarins and local apparatchiks] allow traffic on some of the dozen or so bridges being contemplated (Bailey, Medium Girder and M5 ferry), it is likely to be limited to light vehicles in low numbers?

Now, pardon me for getting my rant after all, but what the F**K is this country coming to? We used to be able to span ship navigable Western European rivers in hours and get 100,000 tons of military muscle across them before the end of the week, yet here we are still contemplating where to put them over a week after the damage.

Is it that the surface of the bridge is too rough? Well - prepare the roadway, match it to the bridge and put three six-inch layers of macadam over the whole lot - as if it is a highway - and landfill it afterwards. After giving the bWanks billions, some of it in secret, there is no way you can use the 'two much money' excuse Mr. Brown Trousers, and I can't find another concrete reason for not getting on with it....too narrow? Build two next to each other or use single flow traffic lights....it's just not rocket science is it?

Any suggestions?

"Job Done, Where's the next one?"

'Civil' War

I was going to write about Army recruitment tonight as they are advertising on TV again, however we had today the news that B.Liar/Brown Trousers 'Consultative Group on the Past' [In Northern Ireland] is likely to recommend that all families affected by a death in/as a result of the troubles should receive a compensatory payment of around 12,000 pounds...

When I first heard the headline, I thought WTF! However as the news story unfolded in more depth, I could see the vague logic in it, I was then worried that it would only apply to the residents of Ulster, but it seems that the family's of British soldiers and foreign nationals (like three members of a Miami Show-band ?) will also get a payment.

I guess the thinking is that if a 'Known Player' was killed by the other side, without having ever been successfully prosecuted, his family aught to be entitled to the money, however all those who's 'Player' died after he was legally implicated in militancy (whether Catholic or Protestant) would then feel aggrieved.

Another argument is that it makes it look like crime pays, so do you pay more to the Army and Police families? That is no different - in terms of fairness - from not paying some at all, and presumably the bean-counters have worked out that in the long run it will save some money down the line; the idea being that once everyone has had the money they will all be more likely to come forward with information on unsolved crimes, missing persons etc...

However - I believe - a similar approach was not that successful in South Africa, where those who agreed to co-operate only served to implicate those who chose not to admit their roles, thereby requiring the lengthy, costly investigations and trials that they were trying to avoid in the first place! Note that the 'Bloody Sunday' inquiry has so far cost over £200million - presumably they're burning the money to keep the courtroom warm!

In balance I think this is a poor compromise, but what else could they have come up with, the aim in all these situations (Bosnia, The Basque-separatist region of Spain, SA, Cambodia, Rwanda et al...) is to normalise the citizenry without alienating one or other small group. Ultimately - once you have decided to make payments, you HAVE to pay everybody and you HAVE to pay them the same amount?

And lets face it at £12,000 (less than a years wages for all but the youngest/least skilled of the workforce), this money's no more than a token gesture and is hardly going to change lives.

I was lucky enough not to serve in NI, but friends did, I suspect they would have a hard time accepting this suggestion as readily as me?