hello one and all. i'm bob o'connors sister. he was one of the crew to perish on xv179 on jan 30th 05. yesterday was an emotional day for me as i was so scared that the outcome of the hercules fire was much worse than it was. please ensure that you all take care of yourselves and each other. as flipster wisely says do not underestimate the power of shock. i am so thankful that the crew got out alive but i expect they had the memory fo xv179 going through their mind. nonetheless, we cannot rest as there is still the increased risk that unless we get foam to all hercules now we will be seeing this happen again. foam may or may not have a place in yesterdays fire. i do not know the technical side. i do find it very strange that the wheel bursting caused so much damamge. i know the herc is on a reduced service life and will be fazed out but this is ridiculous way of doing it. i feel so much sadness and pain as it's opened up a very raw pain. even if foam had no place, let us also not underestimate the effect of a full DAS. if there was enemy fire we have to wonder why this was the outcome if as des browne says we send our troops out with appropriate measures to maintain their safety. what a liar!
i have worked very hard to try and get foam /DAS for all hercules and will step up my fight now. i have been in the house of commons taking on MP's. i have had defence question asked in parliament. i'm waiting to hear back from des browne about meeting him. there is an MP called james gray who some of you may know. he is reported to have branded nigel gilbert a self publicist and to let the foam issue lie! his comments are on the parliamentary questions thread.page 30 ish.it's worth a look. please join us in contacting him to tell him he's wrong! i do need your help though chaps and chapesses. please spread the word on your bases. i, a nurse from cambridge, have set up a petition calling for signatures to support fleetwide foam with immediate effect on a website. please sign it and get your friends and families to. in 48 hours we've had 342 names. this is more than we had in weeks on the one calling for blair to meet with the bereaved families. the website is
www.mfaw.org.uk follow the links in the box i think it's orange writing on a green background,or vice versa! it may be utter madness that it takes a nurse to instigate this but if the government can't do it after losing ten of your colleagues then it will have to be shown that we want it. thankyou.