March starts on Sunday!
FReepers, Let's GIT_R_DONE!
Posted on 02/26/2015 4:22:54 PM PST by Michael Collins
A paratrooper who showed "complete disregard" for his own safety during a Taliban attack in Afghanistan has been awarded the Victoria Cross - the highest British military honour.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Probably the last VC for awhile, the Brits are gone from Afghanistan. By the time the world needs their courage and determination yet again, they may not have an Army to hold forth. We are not far behind in unilateral disarmament in the face of a clear and present danger.
God preserve us, politicians certainly will not.
Bravo.
Well, L/Cpl Josh Leakey,
this YANK Major Gives you a SALUTE.
Hats off!
I salute him.
Salute.
God preserve us, politicians certainly will not.
Amen.
The men who wore the maroon berets were also responsible for half of all the killings by the entire British Army of unarmed civilians (ie not terrorists) in the Northern Ireland conflict.
They are just the job for dropping out of airplanes to seize a bridge behind enemy lines or when you need an idiot of a colonel who has stupidly got himself bogged down on a hillside against Argentine conscripts to throw himself on a machine gun nest like a deranged corporal but frankly they are little more than psychopathic thugs who need to put a uniform on to justify their brutal tendencies.
They may be thugs, you are just a f*cking arsehole.
There is something in what you say regarding paratroopers being deployed as policemen. They should not be and should not have been. This chap wasn’t even born in 1972. His own individual actions stand apart from recent Irish history. You may (or may not) realise that certain small progress has been made in what I assume is our shared national background and country. Dwelling in the past is somewhat frowned upon of late or hadn’t you heard.
I stated a fact that half of the unarmed civilian (in simple words “innocent people”) fatalities caused by the British Army were caused by one specific unit. That is truly a shocking statistic.
If that makes me an arsehole then so be it.
The British Army for the most part, I stress for the most part, not always, behaved well indeed admirably in the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
They behaved for the most part as one would expect British infantrymen to behave (although Scottish units frequently acted poorly) with courage, determination, good humour and discipline. They held the line in a grim situation and kept it from getting worse.
This cannot be said for the Parachute Regiment who were quite simply an utter disgrace to the British Army. As I said half of all unarmed innocent civilians killed by the British Army in Northern Ireland were killed by Paras, not only did they murder people, and yes “murder” is the appropriate term, they then covered up their crimes, were protected by the military establishment and then lied in court under oath. That makes them criminals in any other terms, it’s a harsh fact but nonetheless true.
The thuggery of the Parachute Regiment is directly responsible for the dragging out of the Troubles for thirty years and they can reasonably be blamed for the deaths of hundreds of their comrades in the other regiments, they should hang their heads in shame rather than be promoted as some form of elite corps.
On Bloody Sunday, a not especially violent riot in Derry was contained with vigour and discipline by the men of the Royal Greenjackets, a superbly disciplined infantry regiment who were doing the job they were trained to do well and with excellent results, and the rioters were being held with CS gas and baton rounds and were beginning to fade away, as they knew they weren’t going to get anywhere with the Greenjackets.
That’s how the day should have ended; a minor riot on a cold Sunday afternoon that meant nothing and would have been forgotten the next day. But no, the Paras had to go in with their hyped-up, ultra-macho, “we’ll show the crap hats how it’s done” mentality and proceeded to murder 13 unarmed, yes unarmed, boys and men, many of whom were clearly shown on video and in photographs to be running away, many with their hands held aloft, several were shot while waving white flags as they tried to help the injured. Red Cross workers including females, were threatened with being shot by these brave boyos. One corporal even walked up to a wounded man lying on the ground and blew his brains out at point blank range.
These are facts, I make none of it up.
These thugs did this in full view of the world’s media and in broad daylight so not only were they criminals, they were pretty stupid criminals too, their commanding officers were then recorded on TV (you can check out YouTube) brazenly lying about what their men had done.
I admire much of what the British Army achieved in Northern Ireland, I have nothing but disgust and contempt for the Parachute Regiment. This contempt is shared by many other former British soldiers of my acquaintance who served in Northern Ireland with honour and loathe the shame that the Paras brought on the British Army.
Funny how you ignore the FACT that the IRA fired the first shot. Which was proven by the evidence of the Catholic population on the Bogside, and a Catholic priest. Even the (leftwing) CH4 programme in 1997 proved this, with witness testimony and photographs of armed IRA men (against orders of the IRA army council) inc Martin McGuinness. If there is blood of the 13 on hands, the IRA must also take the blame.
The Paras may have overreacted, they didn’t however go into the Bogside to kill.
You could have criticised the Paras for that one action, without the sneering tone overall.
Why am I angry?. I am British, a supporter of the British armed forces, a fan/admirer of the Paras, and my grandfather was one (1944-46).
There was a report of one shot fired in Great James Street earlier in the afternoon, the Paras returned fire hitting a 60 year old man and a 15 year old boy, so not only were they thugs but they were thugs who couldn’t shoot straight.
When the Paras went in after 4pm on the arrest operation no shots were fired at them, there are reports that one individual with a pistol might have let off one round, now if you think that the reaction of supposedly well-trained, “elite” troops to one round being fired from a pop gun is to systematically massacre unarmed civilians who have their hands up and are for the most part running in terror, then you clearly have a different idea of what constitutes well-trained elite troops than I do.
How do that one or two shots that no one in Support Company (who were travelling in on heavily armoured high-revving Pigs) probably even was aware of justify shooting a 15-year-old boy running away in terror down Chamberlain Street?
How does it justify a corporal calmly walking up to an injured man lying clearly unarmed on the ground and putting a 7.62mm round into the back of his head?
How does it justify shooting a bald, pot-bellied man in his mid forties, slowly crawling toward an injured man lying in the street waving a white hanky in the air?
How does it justify threatening to shoot an 18-year-old girl clearly wearing Red-Cross insignia, indeed threatening to put the bullet through the insignia?
If the soldiers all fired aimed shots at gunmen how is it that these “elite” troops managed not to hit a single gunman?
I can tell you why, because they were out of control and running amok as they had done eight months earlier in Belfast when over the course of a few days they massacred a dozen civilians including a priest and middle-aged women. Just as they had run amok at Magilligan the week earlier when soldiers from other regiments were seen physically dragging Paras off defensive civilians to stop them from killing them so disgusted were the other troops by the Paras’ thuggery.
If it was all the IRA’s fault why did the CO need to lie brazenly to the TV afterward about what happened? Indeed why was he recorded earlier in the afternoon shouting loudly and desperately at his soldiers who he knew to be out of control to stop shooting? Why did the senior officers all get the soldiers who opened fire to change their stories? Why did they feel the need to lie under oath in court?
It wasn’t just Bloody Sunday, time and again the Paras disgraced the British Army. Face it, the Paras are almost single-handedly responsible for prolonging the Troubles, they have the blood of hundreds of British soldiers on their hands.
I have personal and family reasons for hating the IRA so don’t try to paint me as some sort of IRA-lover, I have relatives who served in the Army who also have contempt for the arrogant, thuggish, macho bullshit of the Paras.
I don’t care if you think I am an arsehole, I don’t care if you think I am some sort of lying Fenian trying to blacken the name of the Paras, but if you don’t believe me perhaps you will believe the word of the Coroner of Londonderry, himself a former British Army major, who described very simply in open court what the Paras did.
“I would say without hesitation that it was sheer, unadulterated murder. It was murder.”
Enough said.
You speak a good deal of sense and I respect your being well informed and of a reasoned opinion. I suppose ther will always be Narrow Water for some solace. All the best..
I remember a senior Para officer who at least had the decency to admit that if he had to choose between what happened at Bloody Sunday and what happened at Narrow Water he would prefer Narrow Water any time despite the loss of life.
Again though, one has to look at the two incidents and say that for one single regiment to be involved in both the biggest single loss of civilian life caused by the Army in the Troubles and the biggest single loss of life inflicted on the Army in the Troubles does suggest monumental incompetence and stupidity in the ranks of that particular regiment.
The best thing that could have been done with the Paras was for them to have been honourably disbanded after WWII as a the sort of unit once needed in wartime but now, like battleships and bows and arrows, an anachronism from a past world.
Good luck to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.