Camelspyyder - thanks for the tip. I cannot, for the life of me, fathom the pay statements (complicated by three moves this year!). I will try to get the information from JPAC. (Groan!).
Blighter pilot
No I would not be happy if I lost CEA or similar. Having shuttled around a hell of a lot this year (moved family twice, as well) I find myself in a post where it costs me more to live and I am paid less than I was in Whitehall. Am I happy about it? No. Would I vote with my feet if allowances are cut even further? Depends on the alternatives...
My visits to Theatre are short in my current appointment, but nonetheless I do them and speak to a lot of guys and girls when I am there. I do not pretend things are rosy; in comparison speak to anyone in a support role in any other government department or local authority. They are sh!tting themselves over pay freezes, longer hours, being TUPE'd or being sacked. Perhaps they are not being shot at (excluding, perhaps, the Greater Manchester Police) but nor is that part of their job description.
Corporately, we run this risk of compassion exhaustion in the public eye. Where has been the public outcry about the redundancies in the middle of the deepest economic recession for many decades? Yes it is tragic that guys are being killed and horribly maimed in Afghanistan, but there is a mood amongst some of the public that we Service people know that when we join and that it is one of the possible outcomes. Given how long we have been at war (for that is what it is), anyone who didn't like it could have left. Look at how Service personnel (predominantly Army) are portrayed in the media: PTSD'd up the ying-yang, abusive to partners, drunk and violent - vide recent episodes of 'Accused', 'Coronation Street', 'East Enders'... The images of (ex) soldiers attending EDL rallies. Where are the characters who are shown as kind, gentle, courageous, honest, sober..?
When genuine Service personnel are shown in the meedja, it is a part of a victim mentality of bravely overcoming multiple limb loss etc (which I do not decry) but this is how a significant percentage of the public view us. There have been exceptions, of course: the Rifleman who casually picked up a POM-Z device and threw it back; the navy medic who received the MM (the account of her 'casual' bravery made me bite my lip), our injured Chinook pilot, etc; but these are exceptions to the rule of media portrayal of service personnel.
Whether we like it or not, we have to suck up many of these cuts and should not expect much support from the wider public, who are facing similar crises in their own lives. The IO campaign to keep the role of the forces in the public eye needs to be maintained but should focus on what we do, rather than on sentimentalising victimhood.
WP