Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

My Son's in Afghanistan: Can't Wait 'til He Comes Home on R+R!

Soldier's mum Mandy is looking forward to her son coming home on R+R

When Ross told us that he was back at base in Kandahar and would remain there till his R+R, we all danced around the house. But then we heard nothing at all from him. Seems he is up to a hell of a lot more in the mountains with the Quick Response Team. Immediately after dropping them off, their Chinook was forced to land when one of the rotors clipped the mountain side. “Mum, we just stood back and watched in horror as this huge helicopter fought desperately to negotiate the terrain before finally landing. A Sea-King was rapidly deployed, with a team of mechanics on board, and to see such a little thing take over was pretty amazing.”

Letter From The Left Coast: Modern Democracy At Work

From Zimbabwe to the San Juan Capistrano School Board, Ian Bowater observes democracy in action and doesn't like what he sees.

Let’s talk about elections. Is it just a year ago that Gordon Brown was wading gloriously through the summer monsoon floods and bird flu? He was on course for another big election win in the autumn. Then he decided to bottle it because Dave Cameron’s Tory bandwagon slipped into town with its usual threadbare, gold lamé policies. Diamond Dave derailed that whole new era of dour, competent government thing in one fell swoop. I still reckon Gordon could have seen off Dave but he choked, leaving the panting, expectant press corps at the altar. There is no fury like that of a bunch of drunks scorned and the Fourth Estate turned on him. “Why shouldn’t it be election year every year?” they cried. Well, it is. Elections are like death and multiple orgasms, there’s always someone somewhere in the world having one.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Maybe It Might Be Doing Some Good?

A telephone call from her son has set our soldier's Mum Mandy wondering if there might not be a reason to be in Afghanistan

“Oh mum!……Listen to this. I’m standing right in front of a ferris wheel, near a small fun fair, and slap bang in the middle of a city. I can’t say where, over the phone, but I could be in London! Well, apart from the heat….it’s still a killer. There are about twenty children hanging off my legs, all laughing and joking, and one of them, he’s about Tom’s age, speaks perfect English. I’m stopping people in cars and he’s translating for me. I really can’t believe it! And the kids here mum, they go to school! It’s how the whole of Afghan could be.”

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! Is It Time For The Land Rover to Go?

With attention focussed on the use of Snatch Land Rovers in Afghanistan, and with one eye on Friday’s Veterans’ Day celebrations, our resident vet Chuck Unsworth looks back at the vehicle that was the mainstay of the army during the Cold War.

For many years and in quite a few countries, both during and after my military service, I’ve travelled about in Land Rovers of various configurations.  They’re very unsophisticated, generally reliable and, whilst not soldier-proof, they are hardy beasts of burden.  They have been modified and maltreated in myriad ways.  Some of these modifications were successful, some not so.  I always preferred the long wheelbase – the 110 – to the slightly more agile 90.  These nomenclatures represent the length of the wheelbase in inches, of course, and rightly so, given its British origins.  Doubtless this anomaly is currently being examined by some committee or other in Brussels, determined to ensure ‘harmonisation’ on the way to a European Defence Force.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Making Designer Sofas Out of Sandbags

Another snatched satphone conversation with her son in Afghanistan for our resident soldier's mum Mandy

The sun did not shine this week. Not a moment has passed when thoughts of the families, friends and comrades of those five soldiers from 2 Para weren’t clouding my head. The guilt that I feel reflects their pain, because today it is them…

Life just fell apart. Laura left home. Tom couldn’t face school. Beenie decamped to her and Ross’s room. She had spoken to two of the soldiers on her Facebook site. And for a while I lost my footing. To Daniel, the beautiful busker who sat with me for a while in Parliament Square on Sunday night, I just want to thank you. Your words meant a lot. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to lose sight of what you have.

And then, so unexpectantly, Ross phoned me.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! National Service Meant Everyone Had the Same Education!

Chuck Unsworth, our resident veteran, has a look at one of the aspects of service life that those who have never served rarely understand 

It occurred to me the other day, reading how Des Browne, our defence secretary, apparently believes that most soldiers aren’t well enough educated to get any other job, that the education given by anyone who does join the forces is second to none. No wonder our troops don’t think that the rest of us value them sufficiently. Frantic Friday night commuters hurrying west out of London to their various homes, weekend cottages, and country seats are usually too busy trying to preserve life and limb on the motorways to pay much attention to the passing terrain.  But the Thames Valley and the areas surrounding the M3, M4 and M40 are full of military and naval establishments, some large and some miniscule, where the forces are given a far better grounding in life than many civilians. It isn’t just about learning how to kill, even when it seems to be just that.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Any Para Killed and I Think It's Him, or One of His Mates

Mandy, the mother of a para currently serving in Afghanistan and a regular contributor to this blog, describes what it's like when any British servicemen is reported killed in Helmand.

Ross's girlfriend Beenie burst through the door with the news just after 11.30pm on Sunday night. “Mandy… Three Paras have been killed…there may be more! A suicide bomber.” She’d been across the road and a friend from her British Airborne Wags Facebook network had just called. “She doesn’t know any more, just yet…” Oh god! My knees just went and I wanted to be sick. Beenie was crying and all hell seemed to break out...

Letter From The Left Coast: Obama and His School Kid Politics

Ian Bowater in his latest letter points out the misogyny of the US main stream media - make that the international media - and the way they gave Obama a free ride.

False consciousness is a wonderful thing. The week that saw the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President also saw “Sex and the City” reap $100 million at the box office. The best hope of a woman in the White House for several generations to come was forced to concede. The film that equates female empowerment with an urban myth about four over-sexed harridans being told what designer shoes to wear by its Gay male creators is so popular, there has to be a crossover demographic among the fans. I have near anarchist friends in West Finchley who think the girls’ antics are great. I know highly intelligent, fully paid-up, bleeding heart on their sleeves liberal women who don’t think the anti-Hillary campaign was sexist. When she was asked to pass the Commander-in-Chief test, they dubbed her a warmonger. When she showed emotion, it was crocodile tears to get her own way. When she touted her experience, she was riding her husband coattails. When she faltered, she couldn’t control her old man. When she wouldn’t give up, she was being a stubborn bitch. When she didn’t concede on Tuesday, she was a troublemaker-in-waiting.

In Memoriam: A Tribute to The British Servicemen Killed in Afghanistan in Our Name

The deaths of two British paratroopers this week (June 26th) takes the number of British servicemen killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 108, of whom 99 died in action, in southern Afghanistan since British troops deployed there in April 2006. Unlike the MoD's list, this blog includes anyone killed in combat even if they are officially deemed to have been killed in non-combat related incidents, as in the case of the 14 servicemen killed when their Nimrod aircraft exploded over Kandahar province. They all died in action. An additional nine servicemen have died elsewhere in Afghanistan since October 2001, three of them in action prior to the current deployment, two as a result of bomb blasts in Kabul and four as a result of illness or non-combat related accidents. Who is to say that over time, the number killed won't surpass the 176 who have died so far in Iraq?

Another Senior Officer Quits the Army Amid Anger Over Cuts

The resignation of one of the army’s most experienced and decorated special forces officers follows his outspoken criticism of the government for failing to provide enough troops and equipment is a bitter blow. Brig Ed Butler, a former commander of 22 SAS, is the most senior of three key commanders to have resigned in the past year amid widespread anger over lack of funding and his resignation came in the same week that Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, called for better treatment for the forces and more money to be spent on defence.

The Idiocy of Scrimping on Intelligence Analysis

Defence chiefs appear to be as concerned as this blog over plans to cut 121 jobs among the Defence Intelligence Staff analysts who warned that the government’s dossier on Iraq was wrong. They have apparently ordered a rethink of the assault on the Defence Intelligence Staff, part of a “streamlining” of government departments ordered by Gordon Brown when he was chancellor, describing it as a risk too far. I am told that the intelligence services watchdog, the Intelligence and Security Committee, has taken evidence from Chief of Defence Intelligence Air Marshal Stuart Peach with MPs on the committee expressing concern over the plans and that officials have warned internally that the cuts mean vital intelligence will not be adequately assessed and “in some cases may not even be read”.   

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! The Army is Losing its Best People

Following the call from the head of the army for better treatment for our troops, resident veteran Chuck Unsworth explains why the armed forces cannot afford to lose their best people

Walk into any organisation’s headquarters and within a few seconds you can sense its personality.  Glance at the state of the building, pass the time of day with one or two people and within a few short moments you’ll have a very clear view of how things are.  Some organisations are unwelcoming, demoralised and slapdash.  Others seem to be humming along, confident, cheerful and highly professional.   The same is true of most establishments, including those of the armed forces. When you arrive at a military garrison you get an immediate sense of the Regimental Sergeant Major’s character.  From the moment you are stopped by the sentry on the gate to the point where you find your quarters it’s an instant education.

My Son's in Afghanistan: While I Store up the Food Parcels

Soldier's Mum Mandy gets another worrying call from her son

Good ol’ British weather! Half-term and under orders of flood-alert! Again!  My escape to the countryside is hastily replaced with Plan B. Well, it would be, but the house phone keeps ringing. Because call centres ‘do what it says on the tin'. “No! I do not want your broadband, nor your tax band, not even your brass band! Go away.” Well something like that.

“What? You ok Mum!”  I am. But the dog legs it.

“Hello!.......I’m back at Kandahar now thank god! Training on quad bikes….yeah it’s all good….thought I was lazing around did you?”

Christopher Morgan - The Loss of a Wonderfully Kind, Decent Man

Writing with other journalists can be a mixed blessing. It ought to produce an article that is better informed, yet often all it produces is a pig’s ear. At its worst, putting two journalists on the same story is something akin to stuffing two ferrets into the same sack. So when you work with someone who is not like that, whose methods and sources you respect, you remember it with affection. I first spoke to Chris Morgan a long time ago when he was presenting Radio 4's Sunday programme, constantly breaking great stories on religious issues that my then paper, the old Daily Telegraph was keen to report in return for a plug for his programme. He was a joy to speak to, and I remember on one occasion saying to Chris how interesting his broadcasting work must be and being taken aback when he replied that he would much prefer to work for a newspaper. So I was really pleased for him when he started writing for the Sunday Times – where he covered both religious and royal issues - and when I joined the newspaper was very happy to be asked to work alongside him on a number of stories. Our telephone conversations – the last was only a couple of weeks ago - were always a joy. He was a wonderfully kind, decent and honourable man. So it was with great sadness that I heard today that he had taken his own life at the age of just 55. His death is not just a loss to his many friends, it is also a great loss to the Sunday Times and its readers.

The Winners and Losers from the MoD's £2bn Black Hole, or Do I Mean the Losers and the Losers?

The past six months has seen internecine fighting between the three services on a scale not seen for many years as the Royal Navy, the Army, and the RAF bickered over which programmes should be scrapped to save the cash needed to fill the £2bn black hole in the MoD’s budget over the next three years. Yes you're right, the whole point about black holes is you can't fill them and so it has proved. The service chiefs have agreed, if that is the right word, on a series of delays and salami-slicing, most of which simply postpone payments and move the black hole back a few years when it will re-emerge even larger than it is now. Don't expect a list of cuts out of the MoD, Gordon doesn't want the bad publicity over not properly funding the armed forces so that mantra about telling parliament everything has gone out of the window. But here for TimesOnline readers only, is a list of the winners and losers, or more accurately the losers and the losers:   

Letter From The Left Coast: The Americans Are to Blame for Boris!

Ian Bowater, back from taking out a mortgage to get his car towed, with the latest from the US elections

Having failed miserably as a political prophet, I am re-inventing myself as a psephologist. The world of political number crunchers and navel contemplators can always use one more. Hillary Clinton has been massaging the figures ever since it went pear-shaped all those months ago on Super-Dooper-Tuesday. She has won five of the last seven primaries and still has got no closer to Barack Obama. Like climbing uphill in loose sand, it might be good for toning her thighs but it is still a big pain in the ass. There is no good way for her to look at the numbers even though Bill insists there is. He was never good with figures only results. He couldn’t tell you how he reduced the deficit, he only knows he did.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Cooling Water in his Socks

Finally our soldier's Mum Mandy gets the longed-for phone call from Afghanistan

“Hello mum! It’s me!”

Oh my god! Finally, after nearly two weeks of crucifying silence I hear from Ross. I sit down on the dog, spilling my coffee.

“Still blistering in the heat though, but we’re all ok.  We trampled a field, but paid the farmer for the damage done… and the poor guy was later killed… probably because the Taliban thought he had sold information to us... another blew himself up planting a bomb. We all saw the explosion in the distance, which was captured on thermal imaging filmed by intelligence…. but they wouldn’t attack us outright, no matter what we did… they just weren’t having it...”

Tessa (I’ll jump under a bus for Tony) Jowell should, I feel, really be counting her blessings over the gypsy encampment at the foot of her £1million country pile. It could be a whole lot worse.

“…so, back at Bastion…yeah! I’m good. The sat phones went down and new ones were delivered after we were away down from the mountains. We’ve been protecting a village for five or six days, spread out all over and because we were in the Green Zone not much happened. It’s all good.”

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! But Some Things Will Never Change

Our resident veteran Chuck Unsworth goes back to his Vietnam days to reflect that disengagement from military occupations like those in Iraq and Afghanistan are never easy.

It’s a couple of hours flying over the South China Sea on a Boeing 707 from Singapore to Tan Son Nhut airport at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).  My flight, just after the Tet Offensive in January ‘68, was notable for a couple of things.  One was the elegantly uniformed cabin crew of extremely blonde blue-eyed stewardesses from the American Mid-West.  The other was being told on presenting my boarding card that I could sit anywhere I wanted.  On the aircraft there were only six passengers.

Why Des Browne Misled Parliament Over the Safety of the RAF's Nimrod Aircraft

The damning verdict given by coroner Andrew Walker on the deaths of 14 men in an RAF Nimrod spy plane that exploded over Afghanistan on 2 September 2006 resulted in headlines which concentrated on his call for the Nimrod fleet to be grounded and his insistence that the MoD’s “cavalier attitude to safety has to end”. That call led, ironically, to suggestions from some that Walker was passing judgement on issues he knows nothing about. I say ironically, because it is Walker’s critics who don’t know what they are talking about.

The Musa Qala Half-Marathon. Soldiers Under Fire Raise Money for Wounded Colleagues

Now it’s happened, we can reveal that British soldiers based at Musa Qala in northern Helmand raised more than £4,000 for Help the Heroes by running a half-marathon round their base yesterday. Regular readers will recall that we asked you to contribute to the guys’ sponsorship money by clicking on their website and pledging some money. Given that they are currently involved in a major operation against Taliban fighters who are trying to capture the town and that one of their number, a member of the SAS, was killed last week, this is astonishing. This is what Captain Chris Howard of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who arranged it had to say about the race: