As someone that was fighting a losing battle in trying to get you guys a decent CSAR/ICR/JPR (whatever the doctrine boys want to call this month) capability I am genuinely delighted that your efforts have been recognised. And of course there will be those that were there as part of the organisation that were not formally recognised but everyone knows were part of the team that made it all happen. Lets be honest there are very few military honours that ae as a result of individual efforts - normally there is someone else invoved in the chain of events that lead up to the act of bravery.
But as leave my current job - and start to look at feathering my nest for civvie street I am saddened that I have not been able to make any headway with the whole JPR capability and despite the individual acts of bravery feel disappointed that for such a deliberate operation that there was not an organic JPR capability - and I am not talking about a Sea King on steroids. As AHQHI656Sqn has said in previus posts something akin to an HH60 or something similar (especially in the training to crews) that would have negated the requirment for these men to put themselves in harms way.
This time the guys got away with it and they really lived by the maxim of not leaving a man on the ground - but i think that they have agreed that luck (as well as bravery) was on their side and in future such an attempt may lose many a life and damage morale when a small, well trained and organic CSAR capability could not only do these kinds of missions, but also assist worldwide with others that sees UK personnel (both civilian and military) in need of a combat search and rescue/recovery.
Well done guys - to be honest the MCs for aircrew really does impress me as I can imagine what was going on in the cockpits (even as an ex Wokka driver)but heaven knows what was going on on the ground.