MM, I am not surprised as such and agree with all you say; in fact I am pleased in a strange way - we do need more crews and pulling them from SAR is about the one way (short of compulsory call up of those who have already left
) that Joe Civi will take any notice - it's about the only thing likely to affect him or his mates.
Pulling blokes out of the training system would be a dangerous move indeed - using SAR crews is bad enough and I think we are already feeding on ourselves but the enevitable constriction and reduction of fresh blood to the front line is an even more unsustainable situation, the more so when retention is largely realised by ROS alone.
For what it's worth, here's my bit on arrse:
//Isn't it fortunate that we have a military SAR force (read an in-great-desperation reserve of trained and skilled crews) from which to pinch some chaps... leap ahead beyond the much vaunted privatisation of SAR in 2012 and what would happen then? Would we be able to bolster the front line in extremis in such a manner? No.
I'm sure the brass would claim those crews post 2012 are permanantly released to front line and so thus this situation would not arise... but we all know that is arrse, afterall, surely the point of having reserves of strength (even if you don't call them that) is that you dont
plan on using them and you maintain their availablity... no-one can know when you might be overstreached and in dire need of that support... ok, ok, so 39,000 RAF, 34,000 RN and 102,000 Army, their wives, wives' tennis partners, wives' tennis partners' friends and the whole of the English speaking world (bar ZanuLabour) have known and forseen the need for some time but you catch my drift.
Will this cause a re-think of SAR privatisation?
Will the sweeping privitisation of all manner of UK based jobs be halted or reversed because they realise the utility of having spare blokes in the system?
Will Gordon Brown admit that a better way to honour the memory and courage of fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen he talks about in his recent book would be to fully support IN ALL RESPECTS their successors who too fight and die for each other in foreign fields?
If true this is an incredible, if admittedly necessary, move. In my book this kind of thing is for the approach of WWIII - there is no way that we should be in this state over Afghan and Iraq; another indicator, as if it were needed, that we have past the elastic limit. //
S_W / F_G