not all thick
it's all vey amusing to laugh at the own goals scored by the few hot heads however ...
there were many of us who served in the province in the 70's arriving with the 'Irish Jokes' from the TV comedians fresh in our minds, imagining we were facing a dim witted opponent.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, we faced a ruthless determined highly organised enemy with a multi-layered intelligence collecting ability. Yes there were fools, like the RPG-7 pair down in Newcastle, and the pair in Belfast who hit a bump in the road and the peg fell out of their IED initiating instant martyrdom. But these were few compared to the devious and cunning plans which worked. We had a long hard road to take to even begin to understand what we were facing. ... and still the Irish jokes abound.
It wasn't always funny ...