St Crispin’s Day

Good old Wells brewers, creators of Bombardier bitter have produced a fun englishness test.

St Crispin is 76% English apparently!

Hat tip to Daily Referendum.

For more beer humor, click here for the Spitfire series of non PC adverts!  I love them!

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Michael Yon has written a great piece here having been embedded with the Staffordshire Regiment.

Michael is obviously used to working with US forces (his abbreviation of Lt Col to LTC gives that away!).  So he is also used to the overwhelming amount of equipment that our US partners have.  Several times in his article he comments on the lack of air support that the British have.  Sadly he makes the comment that they do very well without it.  Well, they would do even better with it.  It’s sad they have to make do with improper levels of equipment, but then again unlike the US, we can all have our teeth fixed for free in this country. Can’t we?

See here on BBC news.

Said by PM whilst discussing the Prince Harry connundrum. 

No parent is delighted thier offspring is in Iraq.  What an imbecilic thing to say.  They may be proud, but never delighted.  He really has no idea what he is talking about.  Just how low will he stoop for a bit of spin?

So says SSgt Pierre in this article.

I am a little surprised at the publicly negative attitude of SSgt Pierre, but with 100 & 200 people being killed in single attacks on an almost weekly basis, I can’t blame him.

The US soldiers I worked with in 2004 never showed this amount of pessimism.  This seen alongside the US Congress’s decision to pull out from Iraq (which will be vetoed by Bush).  Shows that the end game for western powers has started.  We are all looking for an out.

Hat tip to Greyhawk at milblogs for this link.

BBC NEWS | UK | Harry will not quit, say friends

Poor old Harry,

He really must be in a quandary.  As any young officer will tell you, your one & only job is to make sure the lads in your platoon / troop are looked after.  He knows full well that his presence in Iraq will create a bit of a problem, and could well put lives at risk.  Equally he knows that this is likely to be his only chance to put into practice all the hard work he’s put in at Sandhurst & Bovington.  Who among the rest of us would not wish to practise our chosen occupation?  He would never want to put his lads in any more danger than already by his presence.

What to do when your wife wants you to do the chores!

The latest “In House” Magazine of the Royal Navy.

I am a huge fan of the TV series Band of Brothers by HBO.

So, I was saddened to read that one of the larger than life characters, Lt Ronald Speirs, died on the 11th April this year.   He was 9 days short of his 87th birthday.

Scottish born, Lt Speirs is famous for two incidents depicted rather well in the series.

The first is that he was rumoured to have killed a group of German prisoners of war on D-day after first giving them cigarettes.

The second depicts his heroic actions at Foy in the Ardennes.  He was order to take command of Easy company from a weaker commander after thier assault on one edge of the town had stalled. Once he had secured one side of town he realised the needed to inform the commander attacking the other side of his troops dispositions.  He personally decided to take the direct approach, and ran straight through the German positions to the far side of Foy.  Having passed on the details he took the incredible decision to run back through the Germans, who although shocked at his one-man initial assault, were now prepared for him!

He later parachuted into action in Korea, and served as the governor of Spandau Prison which incarcerated Rudolf Hess.

RIP Ron

CURRAHEE!

BBC NEWS | UK | British helicopters crash in Iraq

As always the quote from official sources is

“Initial reports indicate that the crash was an accident and was not a result of an attack by insurgents.”

This was almost the same quote that was put out when the C130 hercules was destroyed  (thanks to Postman Patel for blog) in Al Amarah after an “incident during landing“.  St Crispin has learnt that all was not as it seemed in this case, and operational errors / complacency was probably to blame.

It appears that the usual landing strip clearance operation was put in place prior to landing, but due to complacency / bad leadership or incompetence, the strip was left unguarded for a period of time and this was enough for the insurgents to get an IED (roadside , or runway-side in this case, bomb) in place.

We must remember those killed in this latest tragedy.  We must also remember that the military have been there so long now, that errors may be starting to slip in.

I wonder when the truth will come out on this one?

BBC NEWS | UK | Foreign policy ‘undermining UK’

The politically correct reason for having a military nowadays is apparently to be a “force for good”.  This is according to the latest spin, and even the Army is putting it on it’s own propaganda publicity literature.

I always believed it was to protect our borders, culture, & resources from outsiders!  Silly me. 

Be that as as it may, I am pleased that even a Grauniad reading, sandal wearing organisations like Oxfam have said that despite the c*ck up in Iraq, we should continue to have a strong capability to intervene militarily when needed.  Good stuff, now lets cut back on lesbian mutual support groups, and Afghan dance classes for refugees, and get building a few more armoured vehicles (replacing the ones we’ve lost would be a start!).