The Gray Monk

This is highly unfortunate. I don't know as much about current events in Britain as I feel like I ought to, but what I'm learning isn't very pretty. And I'm finding that what's shown in the American news media is pretty amazingly shoddy (big surprise there).

It's very sad to see the British armed forces being gutted so savagely, and to see such an historically great nation declining so rapidly. It's also quite scary, as an American, in very personal terms.

For one thing, our two nations have had a very special relationship for most of this century that, I feel, has been very beneficial to both. And I think I can speak for most Americans when I say that even though I believe we've made some mistakes since the attacks on the world trade center (perhaps even some very serious ones) I'm personally thankful to the UK and to her citizens for standing so stoutly by our side since then.

For another, I'm very, very concerned that we are only a few generations (if that) behind you over here on this side of the Atlantic. Our beauracracy is growing exponentially as well, with no sign of abatement. I worry about that all the time.

I can only hope that things aren't as bad as they seem over there right now and that you (and we) can find the right leadership to prevent a total decline.

I agree emotionally with what you say, but I think you slightly overstate your case.

I grew up as the child of a serving army officer, who served the army for every day of his adult life. My ancestors served their country in every generation. I now work along side Army, Navy and Air Force medical personnel in an NHS hospital, nursing (among many other people) wounded army personnel returning from Iraq. It is an immense privilege.

My father was an infantryman and the Regiment he joined in 1945 was the Buffs. (Though he'd served in other regiments during the war.) In the course of his forty two year army career it merged twice, first (I believe) with the other Kent regiment to become the Queen's Own Buffs, secondly with neighbouring home counties regiments to become the Queen's Regiment. Since his death it has merged again to become the Princess of wales' Regiment. My father found it all very sad, but it's not neccessarily the end of the Regimental system itself, because people still join a regiment or corps, with a personal ethos and inherited history from their ancestor regiments and a very specific geographical link, all be it on a regional basis rather than a county one. Even then battalions often maintain a more specific geographical link than the Regiment, with, say, the 3rd battalion of the Queen's Regiment covering much the same area that the old single battalion Buffs did until 1960. This still makes the system distinct from, say, the US Army, where, if you join the infantry you can be sent to any infantry unit in the service. One of the rationales behind the current 'reforms' is that by merging single battalion regiments in other parts of the country into multi battalion regiments they increase the ability of those regiments to resource themselves. Letters in the Telegraph this week from Army planners pointed out that many battalions deploying overseas need to 'borrow' companies from other regiments to supplement their own depleted forces, itself a process which undermines the regimental system. The reforms would mean that soldiers could be borrowed from other battalions within the same regiment, and be organised internally. The expectation is also that units will serve longer in their home regions. (Just because your regiment comes from Kent doesn't mean that that's where it serves) As a child I moved every one to two years with great effect on my education and personal relationships. By moving bases less frequently the hope is that the social support that the regiment maintains will be strengthened not weakened.

You compare service levels with the war and with 1990. They are both significant dates because they reflect the end of the second world war and the cold war. It inevitable that services contract after wars. The same thing happened after the Napoleonic wars for example. Fourteen years ago the military forces of three continents gazed at each other over the Plains of Germany. Whatever wars we fight now are simply not going to be on the same scale, cut backs were inevitable. At least we're not following the old military adage of preparing for the war we've just had rather than the next one. Personally I'm much more bothered by the fact that we no longer have the independent facilities to fully deploy our own troops. I'm not anti US, I just don't want us to be dependent on them.

Mr Hamilton

Your family has a long and proud history in the service of your country.

When the action starts and another human soul is obviously determined to do you fatal personal harm, the support of your immediate colleagues and therefore the regiment (or in my case, squadron) in which you serve is of such importance that if you have not experienced it you can have no conception. Sorry.

Your remarks are no doubt well intentioned.

We do not have the facilites to properly deploy.

We do not have the facilites to properly fight in the multiple fields that HM government sees fit to deploy us any more. Our squaddies and airmen are leaving in droves because they spend all their time away from their families or when they are at home they are to undertake skills training or guard duties.

Emasculation of HM Services was NOT a requirement following the end of the 'Cold War'. (Unless you are completely asleep there is another clear and present danger to our Western Christian Society. But no one will speak its name.) Giving well motivated and trained people the wherewithall to fight, if need be, and to fulfill their voluntarily shouldered obligations to Queen and Country was.

I even quote a Liberal author: 'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf'.

When the chips go down.., and they will in the not too distant future, and we all have to re-assess our values in something of a hurry... remember this.

What worries me most about you lot is that you have disarned your citizens. Not just disarned them, in fact, but denied them the right to self-defense. I suggest you re-assess your values before the chips go down.

I do not have a problem with "modernising" I do have a problem when this is used as a disguise to run down a service or reduce it. In this instance we are expected to believe that new "smart" weapons and systems will allow 39 ships to do what it took 80 to do previously. That the RAF can do with 247 aircraft what it needed 430 to do previously. The numbers give the lie and so does that fact that, in a real crisis, it will take four years to replace each ship and at least as long to train crews to man them, a year to replace each aircraft and three times that to train their pilots. Even the PBI now have such high levels of training that it takes anywhere between 0ne and two years to train an Infantryman (or woman) to operate effectively their weapons and to not get killed in the first five minutes on a battlefield.

There is no way the papershufflers in the newly refurbished HQ can be used to fill the gaps - which was what used to happen until all the useless and wasteful "managers" parachuted in - while real soldiers, sailors and airmen are trained. These cutbacks are not about modernising, they are about destroying our defence capability and about diverting the money to vote winning handouts.

As for the obscenity of spending the price of a new Type 45 Destroyer on refurbishing an office block and providing state of the art chairs for the worthless incompetents who populate the Whitehall HQ of the MoD, they should all be cleared out and charged for misuse of public funds!

Sadly Mr Hamilton, the same will soon be happening in the armed forces as is the case in the NHS. Incompetent managers whose ignorance is manifested in stinking toilets, disgraceful mixed wards, dirty wards, soiled bedclothes and nice bright shiny office suites for themselves and their hordes of paper shuffling clerks, will become the reality in the armed forces as ships are confined to harbour because the "management" have spent the money for fuel on glossy brochures and "target" measuring.

There is always room for improvement, but it should never be in reducing a service while expanding the bureaucracy!