As a commercial pilot who has been made redundant I can understand Lt Cdr Ward's reaction quite completely. I have been unemployed as a pilot for almost 2 years, and I have several thousand hours of commercial turbo-prop and jet flying in my log book (no combat or mil flying at all), and I am struggling to get interviews as anything let alone a pilot, and almost no opportunities in the UK, my own home country. Redundancy is a frightening prospect for anyone be they the WEM or WEA or the CO of the Ark Royal, so Lt Cdr Ward's reaction was only human. The fact that his Dad was a Harrier Sky God too, and Sharkey Minor had 140 Afghanistan combat missions in his log book was just too juicy for our impartial and unemotional unsensationalist press, especially the Daily Telegraph who put a great photo of Ward Senior and Minor on the front page!