British army could be overstretched by stepping in during strikes, says Labour
So Labour are going to be demanding and increase in MoD spending, are they?
British army could be overstretched by stepping in during strikes, says Labour
So Labour are going to be demanding and increase in MoD spending, are they?
Yeah just like they did when we invaded Iraq.
About 20 years ago, when we had a Firemens’ strike, a Green Goddess detachment was stationed at the old barracks at the top of the hill near where I live.
Mrs and I were on way to Tescos, when a GG driven by a lady soldier, trundled towards us. It got slower and slower as it reached the brow of the hill,just where the turning into their base was. We stopped as we were wondering what their intentions were. After a few seconds animated conversation in the cab, all the squaddies bar the driver jumped out, ran round the back and started pushing it home.
British Armed Forces, not just the Army. During the last major firemen’s strike, alluded to above, we took to putting the letters RAF in reflective tape on the back of our people’s hi-vis. Despite this, national newspapers still captioned pictures with of them them the letters shining bright white as “Army firefighters”. I think this was my first introduction to Gell-Mann amnesia…
Incidentally, that was Op FRESCO. A trg offr friend of mine was the press liaison officer for our region. He implored us to stop using the inevitable nickname for the op lest he found himself on air referring to Op FIASCO…
I guess I unintentionally misserviced them.
They would have been crabs not pongoes.
Back in 2012 when I was working through RNR officer training, a decent scattering of my fellow trainees (who could get the time off and volunteered) got medals for an unanticipated short-notice deployment, to fill a gap where stuff had gone wrong.
Inevitably, the unofficial operation name for “bailing out the Olympics where the security had gone Pete Tong” was Op SPORTS DAY…
Still, it meant a few more Phase 1 trainees actually sported medal ribbons on their #1 uniforms (adding to the couple of us with Iraq/Afghanistan ODMs, and a couple of ex-regs – one of whom clanked when he came to attention) which looked good for the rare ceremonial events.
I recall a story during the 1977/78 Firemans strike (they were fireMEN back in those days) there was significant pressure from the insurance industry to get the strike over as soon as possible because the squaddies (who were obviously risking their lives and doing their best) were causing far more damage extinguishing the fires than the properly trained firemen would.