Yep, Sky News are also reporting that the £2200 bonus will be for all ranks on 6 month tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I fully appreciate the hard and dangerous job that the Army are doing on the ground in these places but they are doing their job - i.e. fighting a ground war. When I go out there I do my job, i.e. fly and provide a service. We all (I imagine) joined the Armed Forces in order to do the job of our respective Forces and that is what we are paid to do. I however joined to do my job defending the UK, not spend months away from home and family.
Personally I feel that the 'payment' should be for all personnel away from home on operations for any length of time, and the only fair ways of doing this is to either make that time tax exempt during their deployment or have a reasonable daily rate of deployed ops allowance. That way ALL personnel deployed on ops, not just those on the ground in those 2 countries, should get some compensation for being away from home for so long.
MadMark!!!
