Finningley Boy - Where were you based in the UK and were so embarrassed by your Army colleagues?
My greater experience of the Army was in Germany and Belize, and no I wasn't embarrassed by them personally. Indeed, the ones from the Royal Signals and R.A.O.C. for the most part, whom I worked with and lived alongside down at Birkenfeld in Germany were a fantastic bunch. I was at one point thinking of transferring over. But when out in Belize and in Wes Berlin, as I've pointed out earlier, the behaviour of the Infantry, shall we say, and for the reasons given, young lads embued with a tribal mentality, may well make a noticeable difference to the atmosphere in certain parts of the country, you've read the story about the Black Watch. That said, they had a particular reputation, even among Scottish Regiments.
I used to get plenty of stories from the army chums at Birkenfeld, who like us from the R.A.F. regarded Birkenfeld as a holiday away from it all. We were all under the U.K. Support Unit at Ramstein AB, billeted at Neubrucke and later at Birkenfeld and the actual place of work was the Comcen and various EACs and Ops Cells at the NATO Central Region Static War Headquarters. It was without a shadow of a doubt, the best tour I ever had and none the less so for the Army being there. But I learnt something from them and at first hand about the line units shall we say. Not that it worried me in particular but regarding Leuchars, to be perfectly honest, there probably are only subjective arguments for it remaining an R.A.F. Station. That said the arguments for moving everything up to Lossiemouth and moving the Army in there are not built around any clear military thinking, or I imagine this would have been part and parcel of the SDSR or arranged many years ago. The question about moving the R.A.F. from Leuchars surfaced only last October, and then only because of the reaction of the Lossiemouth community that they could experience a double economic blow from the additional closure of Lossiemouth as well as Kinloss. If the Army are moving back from Germany in the future, then what is the argument against them moving into Lossiemouth and Kinloss, considering the greater availability of infrastructure and being on the doorstep of a more realistic training ground. Also, the economic argument is solved. But now the problem has grown tentacles and people have gotten tunnel visioned thinking that the R.A.F. must remain at Lossiemouth at all costs, hence Leuchars is unnecessarily dragged into the debate.
FB
