Gentlemen...
I see a continuing theme in this thread which saddens me, and only makes my decision making as to my future in the RAF even easier. Remeber the old saying there is no I in team work...!? Well, all I get from the majority of the posts here is the sense that we are all bickering at each other, trying to justify our own jobs...the gae old 'them and us' syndrome.
Well, we are all employed by the RAF for one reason, and that is to generate air power. I agree that manpower levels and tasking needs to be analysed constantly, due to the shifting sands of HMG's foreign policy. This is what our lords and masters are trying to do.
Trouble is, we were geared for SDR which is not what we our current commitments reflect - hence the white paper.
Sadly, if anything, I think we need to increase manning - simple, but not what HMG want to hear, nor will they do. Why you may ask!? Well, as a Flt Cdr, there are never enough Admin specialists around to assist me in the running of my Flt's personnel issues. When stretched by operations, there are never enough 'blue suiters' to make the running of essntial tasks any easier. We are asking our youngest and most inexperienced personnel to take on too much responsibility (at all ranks). And, as our engineer friend has said, we make people work until they burn out - not on ops, but on Exs and peace-time tasks. I would write more but it depresses me slightly.
On a final note, some of you really do need to put into context your use of the word REMF. As one of these esteemed fellows, yes my primary duty will usually see me working behind any front line. However, tri service ops consistently see 'REMFs' placed into situations they were not trained for. I have been in a number of interseting situations, as a 'REMF', which were not in the job discription....yes, the aviators at the pointy end face nasty horrors...shoot downs, malfunctions, capture etc...but remember one thing - you were trained to cope with this. SAC Smiffy driving his ammo truck from Basrah to the FLOT during Telic, was not trained to deal with hostile crowds, snipers, mines, or in dealing with the army!
I digress form my original point - stop slinging mud at each other and arguing over who works the hardest - we all do essential jobs, and you only realise that when you loose a capability that you previously took for granted.
Monkey
