Crab, 'tis only a few mild japes at your expense
The primary requisite for any service is a sense of humour. No, FED, you are correct, I know nada about Afghanistan or Iraq, apart from what I'm told by returning service personnel. I'm the lucky one. The fighting troops are experiencing more in a week than I, and my contempories experienced in years. That is of course another discussion.
My contention is that Crab does himself no favours by extolling his own virtues while denigrating those who were service personnel, but now work for a civilian contractor or those who have never taken the shilling. There's that grubby pair of words, 'civilian contractor.' If we can forget that the crews wear slightly different kit and receive their take home pay via differing routes, then perhaps Crab could accept that all the crews do a magnificent job, in conditions where most of us during our flying careers would rather remain chained to a coffee machine. There is no situation where one deserves more praise or kudos than the other, even if there's a disparity about that ancient nugget NVG.
It has been stated previously that the yacht crew or mountain walker don't care if you wear green, blue or even grey, they are happy to see your winch op descending to them. I contend that the civilian structure stands on an equal foot with their service team members.
