Not bitter.. very grown up.
Would I trust a RAF policeman after 24 years in the RAF? .. Nope
Did i meet a RAF policeman i trusted? .. yep
By way of trying to expalin the above, I as a SNCO met a fellow SNCO who happened to be a policeman who was a bloody good bloke, and was a Flt Sgt. He arrived at the home of the leaping heap, and boy did he try, and i will back him up on that, but however hard he tried as he said......
"Not gonna make any difference, I went through the same, you cant give someone acting rank at 17 and expect his peers, who got more qualifications, to bow down"
I am not suggesting for one minute that RAF Policeman should earn as much as the man who did better at school, but having known this guy - cut them some slack, they know they got problems. Maybe the trade should die.
As he said we were fine doing what we did for years and that was building checks and barrier up.. barrier down. Then some idiot obviously reviewed the trade and said ok they can check car tax and we will buy a speeding camera for each camp.
Hand a 17 year old a speeding camera...... and you know what cars he will aim for, he is after all 17!!
No doubt I will now be told he has to be 18 to handle said camera.
In the end i do feel sorry for the RAFP, and I am being serious. Once the days had gone of the Trade Assistant General (They all moved on to become Harrier Pilots) the Police were shunted into Guardrooms, they hated it, wanted nothing to do with it, and one trade review later were given things such as speed cameras to make them a proper trade. Once you did that, but did nothing about the 17 year old being boss the rest of the RAF gave up IMHO.
Oh and the other fecking thing they did which was unforgivable was to say they could not do guard. Certainly on the camps I was on for 24 years they refused point blank. Like the Firemen you win no freinds for that policy. There are a lot of other sections that work shift as well. I am not interested in manning or how good you look in your sunglasses, you lot knew what you were doing and milked it.
As I said... not bitter.. far from it. It was the kind of trade you in the main ignored - because thats all they were worth. Trouble is the times you did have contact with them, they wanted to play at being Inspector Morse. As i said to the zit kid who told me to raise the barrier one mornig at deadloss- "i will raise it - when i am satisfied who is coming in" Yup he did buy it - for the morning rush, in the hour they did dain to appear, I was not allowed to touch the barrier for the rest of the week. I got to check the IDs instead.. doh!! Funnily enough it took OC Police to tell me this turn of events.
Result... and yes i did laugh every moring as he tried to put the barrier down every morning between cars during rush hour.
The SWO even congratulated me on my skill!
I had forgotten how evil i was in my youth
JimNich and KeithL will reply if I am wrong :0
Rant over