Well done to UK senior officers!

[kbf1]

SASless:

I think the key issue is that the Challenger crew, and the Sqn Commander and CO of the Regiment will be subject to a BOI on their return to the UK. If the BOI finds that ther has been culpable negligence on the part of anyone involved in the incident then they will most certainly face a Court Martial, and quite rightly so. Where the cause of anger eminates in the British forces is the perception of the way in which the Americans are not subject to the same rigours (note I say perception, there are probably cases that can be quoted where this is not the case).

Take the last GW when the A10 attacked the Warriors from the Cheshire Regt. The UK wanted to see a BOI set up and the pilots to be questioned. Tapes of the conversation between the pilots and "magic" had highlighted a few concerns about the id process and how stringently the pilots had applied the RoE in force at the time, all valid concerns I would argue. The pilots were sent straight back to the US and were effectively "lost" in the system for a while. There were a number of diplomatic efforts made to have the pilots identified and made to answer for their actions before some sort of competent tribunal (be it a BoI or Court Martial, or Civil tribunal/trial). The USAF claimed that it did not know the whereabouts of the pilots at that precise time (they were back in the US though the USAF claimed they were in Kuwait, whereabouts unknown for operational reasons). The pilots never faced any sort of formal, competent inquiry of any sort, and in one case was promoted soon after the end of the GW.

You can argue the rights and wrongs of the actions of the pilots at the time, including the circumstances, and all of the surrounding factors in mitigation. I accept that to a degree. The cause of the issue with the army is not so much what happened and why, but that nobody was ever made to account for what happened and the way in which the process was handled.

The net result is a real sense (perception if you will) of "them and us" within the British army, that the Americans get away with quite literally murder, while we are made to account for our actions. To a degree I share the view that US servicemen are protected from the consequences of their actions in a way that a British serviceman would never be, I cannot help thinking that this is wrong.

The view in this forum is not representative of the views of the British Army. This forum is dominated by RAF aircrew, not soldiers, and it is fair to say that the cultures between the 2 services are very, very different, and I am not just talking about the AAC. What you will not get from this forum is the feeling of mistrust that lies under the surface with a lot of soldiers in the British Army towards their American counterparts. I am going to make the point now that this is not American bashing, this feeling really does exist and it eminates mainly from the political handling of incidents after the event, not so much from the fact that they happen.

You could make comments about the Sea Kings which crashed. 1 American life was lost, so it would not be a surprise to me if there was some sort of feeling about that (I have already had the flung in my face in conversation with a USN officer). The difference to remember there is that the 2 helicopters collided, they were not shot down by the Ark Royal's defences. In the same way I would not be critical of the fact that 8 Royal Marines died when the CH46 crashed because it was an accident of no-one's making. It could equally have happened on a training exercise.

I think that the US contributers to this forum should recognise that there will be criticism of US actions by some of us here, just as I accept that there may well be criticism of the actions of the British Forces when they do something wrong. It should also be recognised that criticism is not akin to "American Bashing".

I want to say a word on the accusation of smugness and arrogance. I had words put in my mouth, and intentions attached to them that were not mine when I wrote what i did. When I challenged one contributers comments by quoting verbaitm what I had written I was accused of being smug and arrogant. When I paraphrased Aquinas I was accused of being arrogant for quoting myself and paraphrasing Aquinas. I was accused of being arrogant for daring to consider that Aquinas had written about such matters centuries before. I was damned for supporting my view with reference, I was damned for trying to support it without. I was not alone in this, others were condemned in the same manner. It will be interesting to see what comments come out of this, as i am certain that others will read more into this post than was ever intended.