This is getting a little hysterical.....so let's dispel a few myths. Have you ever stayed on an air base where you were given "5-star hospitality"? Well looked after - as befits an exchange of this sort - but "5-star?" Not many have, I would suggest
Yes, they were paid more for being overseas - it's called LSSA, and most of the boys and girls on the Sqn will have spent a large porportion of recent yeras overseas on one cr@ppy det or another. If they were acommodated in hotels, yes, there is subsistence allowance etc, but you can bet that this would be one of the few dets of this year where this would apply.
And do you really think that OC 33 can merrily take his Sqn on an exercise in another nation without permission from the highly-paid help?
The FJ boys get (increasingly rarely, I know) Red Flag, Maple Flag and so on to train in appropriate conditions against a simlulated threat - why the hysteria because 33 Sqn got to Switzerland to train at high altitude? (probably as part of a multi-national effort?)
I'm rather disgusted at you, Mike, for replying in such a fashion to such an obviously sensationalist report without apparent regard to the background or circumstances.
SBG