HEDP - I would suspect that lyneham's finest have the nouse to look beyond their own, and make an effort to make everyone at basrah (or wherever they may end up) feel a little bit more cheery.
As I mentioned earlier, can understand this chaps grumpiness about being somewhere hot sunny and dangerous for crimbo, but the issue is the insulting of his brothers in arms (witness wokka DFCs, mostly earned by putting their lives on the line to get someone out of a sticky situation, the same way that most medals in the army are earned) and the issue of said insult, not on a relatively benign internet forum, which provides a good way to vent and would have been by and large unnoticed by the outside world, but instead talking to a journo for a national newspaper! That is where the issue lies. And I'm also not blind to the fact that what he said might have been mis-quoted, taken out of context etc, but that's why we have media ops trained personnel, and as an officer he should know well enough to watch his words if his intent is not to cause a scene