FEATURES


uncensored footage appearing on outlets such as Live Leak. The military struggled to stem the flow with seemingly as much time being spent on the media plan as the battle plan. One consequence of the unrelenting spotlight and the horrors it too often portrayed was a growing sense of risk aversion amongst the political class. Soldiers have always known that in war ‘shit happens‘, only now that ‘shit’ is on view to one and all and not everyone is comfortable with what they see.


One of the other things the unblinking eye of the camera also picked up was the sheer number of skills your ‘ordinary‘ soldier now needed to function adequately in the face of the enemy. More than ‘cannon fodder’, modern troops might better be described as technicians, familiar as they are with six to eight weapons systems and numerous types of signals equipment including satellite communications.


They are also trained to near-paramedic standard in field medicine and can drive a number of complicated vehicles. On top of that, they need to be master tacticians, great diplomats and able to display excellent cultural sensitivity, not just to the population of the nation they are campaigning in, but


also to the cohorts of international forces they will invariably now be fighting alongside.


They do all of this encumbered by body armour akin to the protection a knight of the 1500s might have worn. Sacrificing mobility as a method of force protection with cumbersome equipment, was far easier for politicians to explain to a nervous and casualty-averse public.


Yet for all the advances over the past three decades, there are some things which would be depressingly familiar to the infantryman of the 1980s, most of them welfare related. In some cases, rather than mark time, things have taken a step backward.


The introduction of ‘Pay as You Dine’ is a simple example. If nothing else, the Falklands veteran could be sure of getting three square meals a day, essential for the rigorous travails regularly endured. In 2012 there is many a young Serviceman who is foregoing meals, either because they have failed to budget correctly and have no cash, or else consciously decided to spend their earnings on things other than sustenance. It could easily be argued that soldiers have no more right to a free lunch than anyone else yet, if


we expect our Servicemen to risk their lives at the whim of politicians, the least we can do is ensure they are adequately prepared for the hardships and dangers they must face.


Throw in sub-standard accommodation, an issue the MoD are making massive efforts to address, and it is easy to see why some men actually relish the prospect of going on operations because they know that the housing and the grub will both be as least as good as back home and more importantly it will be free. On top of this, an extra ‘battle bounty’ or ‘operational allowance’ allows him to save for things he couldn’t normally afford.


Is this the way we should be encouraging our men to fight: through financial inducements? When I joined the Army, one month before the start of the Falklands War, I knew my pay would be poor, conditions harsh and I might die cold and lonely in a country I knew little about. But in the good old days it was all about the moral component, a reason to fight, a country and people worth fighting for. Today it seems money is the motivation. And that is something no one who served in the Falklands would regard as progress.


Sam & Mark Dunbar


When Sam and Mark tried to adopt they found that their military career stood in the way.


SSAFA Forces Help Adoption Service meant they could have the family they always wanted.


We’re all about people.


The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association – Forces Help. Practical help and assistance to nearly 50,000 people each year.


www.ssafa.org.uk 020 7463 9225 facebook.com/ssafafh www.raf-ff.org.uk Envoy Summer 2012 15


Registered Charity Nos. 210760, Est. 1885 and SC038056


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