The Wondering Brit

You know, the recent shouting about the lack of British troops, kit and support makes me (and I’m only guessing here) and just about everyone who has served in the British forces, both laugh and want to scream in anger!!

Look, it’s sad, but when you start fighting – people are gonna die. So far our dead are few, very few. In fact, the numbers are so low, I think they’re almost unheard of. In return, very few returning soldiers have come home without killing several Taliban. For the most part, while the job is hard, the death toll of the enemy is staggering! Reports of weapons getting so hot from firing that they seize are not uncommon at all. But war is expensive, very expensive in every way possible – especially in human term!

When the Brits went into Afghanistan, they replaced 9000 US troops with only 3000 British troops!! We laughed… We could not believe the oversight by our penny pinching leaders and the highly indoctrinated officers who went out there to do a Recce first.

Here is the truth; This war is Winnable! But understand this, it will take everything we have and more to do so. We are either ‘In’ or ‘Out’, whatever that decision is, it must made now and must be made clear. I watched a re-run of the BBC’s question time the other day on iPlayer – and was disgusted!! People so ready to give up on the first sign that we losing troops in larger numbers – it was sickening. You see I’m British, giving up is not in our doctrine. This is the stuff a soldier lives for and if they need a hand out there, give me a weapon!

I disagreed whole heartedly with the Iraq war, it was and will prove to be the most ill thought out waste of life and money, with zero benefits for those involved and history will prove this the case. Afghanistan is a different beast and needs treating as such.

The UK armed forces are in a terrible state, the numbers are dwindling and when a situation arises where by the MoD employs more civil servants that it has soldiers in the army – there is something very seriously wrong!!

Un-amalgamate the regiments, reinstall regimental training depots and lets get back to how an armed force should look like. Stop p**sing about with NATO, it does not work!
Lets get the rest of the thousands tanks and armour we need, the rest of the helicopters, plus the other aircraft  and equipment - and make sure we never give rise to the question that we do, or do not have enough kit!!  Even slightest hint of such a question is living proof of every type of known failure in leadership, planning and budgeting.
The ony things any military needs is an abundance of equipment, stores and manpower and we have none – that’s the way it is, get over it, take on board, do something about it and move on.

If you need it in simpler terms, can this country protect itself form and invading army? That is the basis of which our military strenglth should be.