[jambutty]

Originally Posted by onlyme

sorry, not served myself, but was born into it. My father did 22 years, I have a brother, cousin and friends currently serving, so feel I have at least a slight knowledge of what goes on.

Ultimately I think that every member of the armed forces (including yourself of course) should be highly commended- even if people do not serve in war zones or fire a weapon in a hostile environment, they are split from their families for months at a time, all for the sake of 'Queen and Country'. I have a fairly dim view of the armed forces in its entirety, but it doesnt stop me respecting the individuals in there, doing the job they do

All service personnel are bound by rules and regulations named, as far as the navy is concerned, “Queens Regulations and Admiralty Instructions” lovingly known as QR’s & AI’s. The RAF and Army are also bound by the QR’s but I don’t know what their equivalent to AI’s is but you can rest assured that there is one. Even families living in married quarters are bound by the same rules.

One rule is that the armed forces must not divulge obvious secrets and operational details be they actual or practice. Thus your slight knowledge could only have been what your relations were able to tell you.

However, this is all getting away from the topic in question – Harry in Afghanistan.

Letters on Ceefax and Teletext plus some newspapers all say the same thing – the video footage was staged. And there is a precedence.

Back during WWI some battle scenes were staged for the cameras and passed off as the real thing. The reasoning being that it was not possible to film an actual battle. You may have seen at least one of them in various documentaries where it shows the soldiers going over the top and one dropping ‘dead’ at the top.

To his credit Harry is doing his best to play down the “he’s a hero” thing that others are trying to promote.

The bottom line for me is that no service person should have preferential treatment because of who s/he is.