There have been many false dawns these last 17 years. For every moment we believed a summit had been reached, hopes have been dashed. I can only hope today's news is not one of them. Even if Lord Philip finds the pilots to have been unfairly blamed, that is simply the start of another battle, since only the Royal Air Force have it in their power to change the finding of their own Board of Inquiry.
However, it must be said: How often do they have to be told they got it WRONG! For the reputation of the service in which I was honoured to serve, they must act now! This issue is bigger than any individuals. It has the capacity to trash the modern reputation of an organisation who's 'few' defended the free world!
Let right be done for heaven's sake!
There will be no celebrating, and no gloating. Merely people standing quietly at gravesides drinking a tearful toast to those to whom a debt was owed.
And paid.
Never will those who knew them, forget them.
And if necessary, we will begin again. And again, and again!