Excellent 1 Hour film halfway through on UK BBC3 now: Jack: A soldiers story. Following one Squaddie through his time in Afghanistan - strong stuff. Keep an eye out for further repeats. Available soon on iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dyhs1
This is one of my favourites of yours Drew. Great shot. When I was 16 I thought about joining the Junior Leaders R.A. look what I missed out on. Oh well....
BBC NEWS | UK | SAS commander quits 'over kit' SAS commander quits 'over kit It's about time they sorted this out.
Unfortunately because he is a reservist 'TA' there will be very little weight behind his resignation and claims. The TA in the main are laughed at by the regular Army.
Unfortunately because he is a reservist 'TA' there will be very little weight behind his resignation and claims. The TA in the main are laughed at by the regular Army. I find the only ones who do ridicule the TA, apart from the normal 'banter' are those who have not worked with them. There are enough of them keeping the army 'overstretch' from reaching breaking point on OP TOSCA, OP HERRICK and OP TELIC and, if you can believe it, getting less support than their regular counterparts. Given that you'll normally find it's the young lads at the bottom of the 'food chain' who belittle the only group that they think they are better than, rather than the soldiers with any real experience.
Owen if memory serves me well: Its across the Shatt Al Arab about 2km along from the Basrah Palace complex. The pic was taken in 2003 and I suspect that it was their before the invasion possibly replacing a bridge bombed during GW1 in 91.
@ Drew; not being a specialist you may allow me to ask two silly questions about the British vehicles in your above postings: A) What are those "objects" outside the vehicles, looking like half closed window shutters? B) To me it seems that the tone of the campouflage color of the vehicles in general does not match with the environment. Why this?
Do you mean like the one on the side of the Warrior AFV in pic 56? If so this was one of several devices to help reduce the risk of Blue on Blue during the invasion. Vehicle had a bright orange sheet on the roof, a flashing infa red light on the roof (a bit like those on push bikes), horizontal V painted on the sides (The paint was about £100 a tin because of a special ingredient in the paint that Coalition Aircraft could see at night) and these grill things. We had to stick them to the sides of the vehicles and during the day the corrigated metal was placed in one way and at night it was put in the frame the other way up. I often wonder if anyone was watching my Land Rover from the skies at any point during the war. As for the Paint..The vehicles were painted in Germany with what was issued. Apparently this too was a special paint that would jet wash off after the vehicles returned back to Germany to return them to the original green and black camoflage...........It didn't work
........It didn't work Like this! As long as only the paint is not to be washed of - no problem. But quite often the soldier has more serious problems - although he was told that he would not have them... So this frame with the corrugated sheet was only a recognition sign?
How it worked I don't know ...maybe the system was invented by the same one who told you that you can wash away the nice bright yellow colour