Originally Posted by Fox3Maddog
QFIHawkman, your very name singles you out as someone singularly unqualified to make glib and inaccurate (GR9?!) statements about being shot at in anywhere more dangerous than Holyhead. If you bothered to read the article (as inaccurate as your post) properly, you would have noticed no whingeing on the part of the pilot in question - merely statement of fact. He was directly answering questions posed to him by the interviewer. As for firing back, clearly ROE and collateral damage are not uppermost in the mind of someone mid PFL to Mona but I can assure you that they do have an impact in operational theatres.
Stick to nibbing with red green and blue pens and let the GR 7 boys get on with their job without pointless injects from armchair warriors like you.
Right, first off. I apologise for saying the Harrier men are whingeing. They're not. I was mistaken and I'm sorry.
I should perhaps clarify my position: I'm not having a crack at ANY pilot out there. I am simply gobsmacked that people think it is somehow shocking that aircraft get shot at now and again in an operational theatre. Then there seems to be a backslapping culture about how brave the GR7 guys are. What?? They're combat pilots! Nobody forced them into Cranwell! I'm sure that THEY are the first to say that this is their job, plain and simple, no congratulations required.
I still hold fast on my main point: Life is MUCH worse for the guys on the ground. And nobody seems to champion their cause. That, in essence is what annoys me a little about some of the posts on this thread.
By the way fox, Holyhead can be quite a dangerous place too! (And I haven't been a hawkman all my life... GR1 stick monkey 89-04, amongst other tours of course, so the armchair warrior thingie was a trifle off target!)