Misery is us
Had a wonderful chat with a lovely Wg Cdr today. She informed me that she has approx 45 chaps working for her who all do (without semantics) the same job. Fifteen applied for redundancy. Not one of them got it. 17 of her chaps, though, were made redundant - and she told them last week. She was absolutely incensed and clearly cared very much for 'her guys'. In a nutshell, she said 'I had guys who wanted it, and not one got it. I had guys who absolutely did not want it, and 17 of them are off - and all my guys do exactly the same job, or near as makes no difference.' She was absolutely gutted and said she felt sick at the RAF's actions.
She believes the system has deliberately penalised those who applied (by not granting it), and crucified others to show 'the RAF can be ruthless'. The facts seem pretty obvious.
If we were to sack every single officer in the RAF of Gp Capt and above and replace them with officers who have served less than 12 years, I am firmly convinced the RAF would be more efficient, more operational, more angry in War, more benevolent in peace, and more sanguine when ruminating over decisions between the two.
War is a battle between people, beliefs and values. At a base level. soldiers are motivated by the basest of instincts, so are governments. The courses at JSCSC are too high brow and whilst they are correct, and true, they are absolutely irrelevant.
We are lost. We have the power to find our way, and perhaps the will. But it is to our junior brethren we should look. The old guard have failed, despite their best efforts.
The RAF has the potential to realise it's ability. The ability to show to others that the UK still represents excellence, power, and a quiet but resolute determination to promote fairness. But sadly not under it's current leadership. We should make it clear, en masse, that enough is enough and we will not be led, blindly, into an abyss so a senior officer can get his pension. One day we will all be dead, and answer to our God. What will he say to you?