18 posts tagged “army”

The Army's chief recruiter has defended the decision to launch a £2 million public relations campaign on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Brigadier Andrew Jackson, Commander of the Army Recruiting Group, said the timing was "coincidental" and rejected suggestions the money could have been better spent on improving pay or equipment.

But he also revealed the army was on course to miss its annual recruitment target by around 10% as he launched the To The Best campaign which encourages the public to show their support for British troops.

Polling carried out for the launch showed the public drawing a sharp distinction between their opinions of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and the soldiers themselves.

While only 41% of those surveyed said they backed operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (with 38% opposed outright), 87% nevertheless said they supported British soldiers.

The campaign, which includes a series of emotive television advertisements, urges people to log their support for the armed forces on a new website: http://www.tothebest.army.mod.uk

The subtitled advertisements feature civilians in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Ghana thanking UK soldiers for services ranging from dramatic rescues to drilling new boreholes.

Brig Jackson highlighted the positive media coverage of Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan as reflecting the mood in the country in support of troops. But he acknowledged a series of high-profile controversies over support for soldiers in society at large including the row over forces personnel wearing uniforms in public.

And while he accepted that a website might be seen as an "abstract" way for the public to express support for soldiers sent to dangerous places, he said he hoped it would lead to people doing so in other ways such as attending parades.

The campaign, backed by a string of celebrities from rugby player Jonny Wilkinson to the singer Jamelia, has been criticised by relatives of some soldiers killed on operations.

>> Looks Serious says: Just to maintain some "BBCesque" balance and impartilaity, something from Gordon Brown (PM) on a similar subject. I also agree with Mark Topper, from London:

"If you are anti-war and feel the need to sling insults then direct them at Westminster".

He said armed forces members should be "encouraged to wear their uniform in public and have the respect and gratitude of the British people".

The decision not to wear uniform was taken by the station commander at RAF Wittering near Peterborough.

Defence minister Derek Twigg blamed "a tiny minority" for the abuse.

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said: "I think that the majority of our public would be appalled to hear that there are no-go areas for our Armed Forces, even in their own country."

A government review of the public's perception of the military is currently being carried out.

It has been suggested as part of the review that soldiers may be encouraged to wear their uniforms off-duty to boost their popularity.

Speaking on Thursday, Defence Secretary Des Browne said it was "a great shame that some individuals in this community don't respect our forces".

He added: "I hope that by working closely with Peterborough City Council and the local police, service personnel at RAF Wittering will soon be able to wear their uniforms freely about the town with the support of the local people."

RAF Wittering was established in 1916 and more than 2,000 servicemen and women are based at the station.

Comments (from the BBC News Site):

This is appalling. RAF employees should not be asked to refrain from wearing their uniform if they wish to do so. It should be a matter of pride to wear such a prestigious uniform. Every single person in the UK owes the RAF a huge amount of gratitude for the job they do. I would not hesitate to thank anyone wearing a forces uniform; we owe our freedom to them.
Julie Butchard, York

When I was at university, and a member of the British Army's UOTC at that university, we were all advised to not wear uniforms in public unless completely unavoidable. This kind of discretion has been a long standing part of the Army's way of ensuring the safety of both its members and the public. The same advice was widely accepted as common sense when I later attended other Army establishments. The policy of discretion allows the military to carry out its duties more efficiently and with minimum disruption to civilian life. After all, the military's purpose is to serve civil society, it is not civil society's purpose to idolise the military.
David, Scotland

People do often give you second looks when in uniform but the majority of the time, it is for the best - very few make negative comments about the work of the armed forces. It is a shame those in some cities do not respect the work we do.
Alex, Liverpool

I'm a Brit living in the United States and I'm very much aware of American opposition to the war in Iraq. However, American service men and women are not being abused but are given respect by the American population. British servicemen and women should be given the same respect for the job they are doing. Those who want to protest the war can do so - but not at the expense of those who put their lives on the line to defend the right to protest.
Mick Cook, La Crosse Wisconsin USA

I used to be in the University air squadron at Birmingham. I used to have to travel in uniform sometimes but generally tried to avoid it because it makes people uncomfortable. It's not like a police uniform where someone wears it to make it clear they are there to help. It's just a reminder of an authority and power we chose to overlook in this country and seeing a uniform in public reminds many of political instability around the world or in Europe's own history. For this reason there is a healthy mistrust of authority in this country and wearing a uniform can seem inflammatory and needless unless on duty as opposed to Japan for example, where uniform is very important and respected by many. In this country Policemen don't go to the pub in uniform, why should off duty officers and airmen etc wear the uniform. It seems a confused affair. In my experience life was simpler keeping it in my bag until on base.
Jack Nunn, Loughborough

>> Looks Serious says: Whilst I'm not sure I set out for this Blog to provide publicity for David Cameron and the Conservative Party here in the UK, I do find myself agreeing with a lot of stuff he is saying at the moment. It's always easy to promise stuff when you're in opposition though. I guess the real test will be if he ever gets into government?!?!?!

Conservative leader David Cameron has accused the Government of breaking the military covenant and announced the launch of a Tory Commission to advise him on the issue.

The Commission, chaired by author Frederick Forsyth and including Falklands hero Simon Weston and historian Sir John Keegan, will look at how the Government and society can better fulfil their obligations to the servicemen and women who put their lives on the line for Britain.

Speaking at a London press conference, Mr Cameron said more needed to be done to ensure troops got the right equipment, better telephone and email links with family when serving abroad and the best health treatment when they were wounded.

He said: "I believe the military covenant is well and truly broken, and I am determined that the Conservative Party will fix it. That's why I can announce today that I have set up a Military Covenant Commission.

"This commission will look at how the Government and society can better fulfil our obligations under the military covenant. It will look at all the issues that affect our armed forces, from training and recuperation, the welfare of their families and their wider relationship with society."

Mr Cameron was critical of the practice of treating soldiers wounded on the frontline alongside civilians in NHS hospitals.

"When our soldiers are wounded, they want to come home to a great British hospital, and in Birmingham Selly Oak they do," he said.

"But when they are injured on Monday they don't want to end up on a public ward by Wednesday. They want to recuperate next to their comrades and that must mean having genuinely separate military wards."

Mr Cameron warned that the covenant had been broken not just by the Government but by society as a whole, citing an "ugly incident" where a Surrey petrol station refused to serve a soldier because he was in uniform.

He said businesses such as mobile phone companies could do more to provide cheaper services to deployed personnel.

Britain's most seriously injured military personnel are to benefit from an improved compensation package, the Ministry of Defence announced.

The new package, to come into effect on February 8, will allow servicemen and women with multiple injuries to receive a lump sum payment of up to £285,000, along with monthly payments to make up for lost earnings which could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds over their lifetime.

Personnel with several different injuries had complained that they were able to claim lump-sum compensation for only three of them.

Payments were made at 100% for the first injury, 30% for the second and 15% for the third.

Following the completion of a consultation involving the Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions and ex-servicemen's groups like the Royal British Legion, Defence Minister Derek Twigg announced that in future all injuries will be taken into account when calculating the size of the lump sum payment.

Six British civilians as well as 18 soldiers working in Afghanistan or Iraq may have been exposed to contaminated blood provided by the US military.

The British soldiers, who were seriously wounded, are now undergoing tests after it emerged that the Americans did not follow their own procedures and test the donors after they gave the blood.

The Health Protection Agency said the GPs of all six affected civilians had been informed. But it admitted that because of the holiday period, some of the GPs may not yet have informed their patients. Those affected are being offered testing and counselling.

An HPA spokeswoman said: "The Health Protection Agency is aware that a small number of British individuals may have received a transfusion of unscreened blood as a result of life-threatening injuries received in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"The agency has advised the Ministry of Defence on the level of risk to those who may have been potentially exposed to infections as appropriate and is assisting with contacting some of the affected people."

Haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood in the late 1970s and 1980s described the blunder as an "absolute disgrace".

Robert Mackie said it was "outrageous" that servicemen and women who risked their lives for their country had been put in this position. He said: "Attitudes have not changed, it is as simple as that. Lessons have not been learnt. It's an absolute disgrace, to say the least."

Defence Minister Derek Twigg said the 18 soldiers would "almost certainly" have died if they had not received an emergency blood transfusion at the front line. While the risk of infection is "low" the matter is being taken "extremely seriously", he said.

The US Department of Defence said the American donors who provided the blood had now all tested negative for hepatitis and HIV. But the British soldiers are still facing an agonising wait to learn the results of their own tests for blood infections.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said: "Of course this is a very serious matter and the Ministry of Defence are taking it very seriously."

The following news story is from the Help for Heroes website.

"Help for Heroes was the idea of Appeal Chairman Bryn Parry and a group of friends and relations, many of who have connections with serving servicemen and women. Bryn and his wife Emma wanted to do something to help the wounded and came up with the idea of a sponsored bike ride. They mentioned it to some friends who mentioned it to some more friends and suddenly Help For Heroes was born and growing fast. A flurry of visits to various offices led to the campaign being blessed by the head of the army, Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.

Help For Heroes is backed by the Army Benevolent Fund, the Army’s own charity that does wonderful work for soldiers and other servicemen and women both directly and through its support of other service charities."

November 21, 2007

Injured soldiers were subjected to a humiliating encounter when they were jeered at a public swimming pool.

Servicemen from Headley Court rehabilitation centre near Leatherhead were about to begin their weekly swim at Leatherhead Leisure Centre, which helps with their therapy, when they were verbally abused by a group of regular swimmers.

One woman, believed to be in her 30s, was so incensed that the soldiers - many of them amputees having returned from conflicts in the Middle East and Asia - were using the pool that she told them that they did not deserve to be there.

It is alleged that she told the men that she pays to swim there and they do not. According to witnesses she was so abusive that the soldiers' instructor pulled the groups out of the water to avoid further embarrassment.

Charles Murrin, of Friars Orchard, Fetcham, who witnessed the incident, said: "I was so cross and I could not believe what she was saying.

"The lane was roped off which they do every week and people can swim in there up until 11am and then the soldiers go in.

"She said the men do not deserve to be in there and that she pays money to come in the pool and they don't." The partially sighted 79-year-old, who was in the Royal Navy man and served in the Korean war, added: "I just cannot believe it happened and that people are like this.I spoke to the instructor in the changing room afterwards and he was livid.

"I know what these people are going through because I talk to them and I have got quite friendly with them."

Linda Sinclair, of Thossnroft Drive, Leatherhead, also witnessed the incident. She said: "I was coming out of the pool as the people started to complain and I was thinking how dreadful it was.

"It was a few people that were complaining and it made me cross and it was not nice for those soldiers."

There were two groups of soldiers waiting to use the pool but following the tirade of abuse their instructor ordered them to leave.

A spokesman for Mole Valley District Council, which owns the facility in Guildford Road, said: "There appears to have been a rare incident where two members of the public queried the provision of lanes of the swimming pool for Headley Court.

"While we wouldn't condone what happened, staff at the leisure centre did their best to accommodate all concerned and acted professionally in dealing with the situation."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We are disappointed that a small number of people objected to the closure of swimming lanes so that patients of Headley Court could use them."

The incident comes just weeks after a national appeal was launched to raise £5 million for Headley Court to build a new full-size rehabilitation pool with equipment in their gym.

The centre treats 180 injured servicemen who have to make the half-hour trip to Leatherhead to use the pool for vital cardiovascular exercise.

>> Looks Serious says:

You might not agree with what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, but remember:

• Everybody serving out there would rather be at home with their families and friends.
• Everybody out there wants to come home to their friends and families safe and well.
• Nobody serving out there lied to you about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Nobody serving out there used 9/11 as an excuse for "regime change" in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Nobody serving out there is doing so because of their own geopolitical agenda, that's all down to the people that sent them there.
• Nobody serving out there financed, trained and armed Osama Bin Laden and his m'jihadeen when they thought he was on their side, fighting against the Russians in Afghanistan because it suited their short-term, anti-communist aims.
  

Everybody serving out there is just doing their job in difficult and dangerous circumstances. They don't get it right all of the time, but generally they are professional and conscientious in trying to make a difference.

If you have a problem with them being out there, talk to the residents of the White House or 10 Downing Street.....

Don't take it out on the people at the sharp end......

The most seriously injured troops are to receive more cash under reforms to the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme announced on Thursday.

Defence Secretary Des Browne said personnel who were hurt in the line of duty would be eligible for payouts for all injuries suffered in a single incident - rather than just the three most serious.

Those who have been injured since the start of the scheme in April 2005 will receive additional payments so they receive the same benefits.

The maximum lump sum payout would stay at £285,000 under the proposals - which will now go for consultation.

The move follows a series of high-profile cases where payments for those hurt in the line of duty have been seen as inadequate.

Paratrooper Ben Parkinson was left paralysed after being blown up by a land mine in Afghanistan last year, losing both legs, suffering severe fractures, and receiving brain damage that left him unable to speak and with severe memory loss.

However, the 23-year-old - who was serving with the 7th Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery - was awarded only an "insulting" £152,000 lump sum because rules of the scheme meant that most of his wounds counted for nothing.

By comparison, an RAF typist who damaged her thumb at the Ministry of Defence in London was given a £484,000 payout.

Defence Secretary Des Browne said: "Our Armed Forces are unique in making a vital contribution to the security of our nation and we have a responsibility to continue to look after them properly when they get injured.

"This review will benefit those with the most serious multiple injuries - and they will be compensated for all their injuries up to the full £285,000 lump sum payment."

Last Friday, I went to pick my sone up from school. Nothing unusual in that apart from the fact that the Mum of one of his classmates had literally just returned from Iraq and was at the school to meet her daughter who she hasn't seen for about four months.

They hadn't even told the little girl that her Mum was coming home, just in case there was a delay or something and so it was a complete shock for her when she came out and her Dad said "Look who's here to pick you up....."

At that point all of the other parents turned away and pretended to be busy with their kids so as to gve them a bit of privacy, but I can honestly say that there was a lump in my throat....

The only downside, it's not permanent and her Mum has to go back in a week or so's time to complete her tour - Something I guess will probably be harder on both of them than the initial absence.

It's a f^*cked up World where parents are away from their young children and risking their lives into the bargain.

SAS veteran Andy McNab has challenged a thief who stole his laptop to turn his back on crime and become a soldier.

The thief struck when McNab, 47, had gone into a newsagents in west London, taking his laptop from his Audi Q7.

In an open letter McNab writes: "I also lost close friends in combat and saw men taken to the brink.

"But for once, I felt I was doing something real with my life.

"There are young men and women fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just like you, they went to school and were offered an education.

"Just like you, many come from housing estates or may be poor families, but they aren't out there robbing people."

South London-raised McNab joined the Army at 16 and is now an author.

The Royal British Legion says Britain has failed to live up to its duty of care to its armed forces.

A nationwide campaign is being launched to highlight the group's Military Covenant which is described as a promise from the nation to help ease the plight of wounded service personnel.

It is a three-pronged campaign demanding a just compensation scheme recognising the commitment and sacrifices made by those serving the nation, Greater commitment to support the physical and mental health of service personnel and their families and more support for bereaved service families.

Speaking at the launch, Frances Done, director general of the Royal British Legion, said: "We believe the nation has failed to live up to its commitments under the Covenant, with the consequence that some people have been left to struggle alone once they leave the services.

"Charities such as the Legion are increasingly being called upon to fill the gap.

"The issues have reached a critical stage. They require the immediate attention of Parliament and must be seriously addressed by all parties in the next general election."

She added: "Thousands of our servicemen and women are putting their lives on the line for us at this moment. They do not hesitate to fulfil their duty and neither should we.

"A career in the armed forces is unique. Those who join know they will have to follow orders, even if this leads to their death.

"This bravery should be recognised and rewarded with the provision of proper care for service people past and present, and their families should the worst happen."

Armed forces minister Bob Ainsworth said: "I welcome the Royal British Legion's campaign to generate debate about the covenant between the nation and the armed forces.

"I will look in detail at the Royal British Legion's concerns and respond in full as soon as possible.

"I do not believe that the covenant is broken and, having spoken to the military chiefs, nor do they.

"But making sure that the covenant is upheld, particularly when we are asking our people to do so much, is very important.

"For this reason we keep the support we provide to our personnel and their families under constant review.