I experienced personal risk to life over the last 16 years as a pilot and an Int officer. I didn't reach the front line as a pilot, but had a few close shaves with airproxes, weather and faulty FADECs(!). As an Int guy I look back at how I dealt with incoming rocket fire in Basra. It was frightening at the time but we learned to live with it, all while prosecuting the enemy with ISTAR and kinetic effects. For a while after I got back I was a bit jumpy around fire alarms and suchlike, but alcoholic decompression and cameraderie helped a hell of a lot.
I also had the chance to experience a bit of what 13 Sqn do now. I didn't observe a target's pattern of life all day surrounded by civ cas, but I watched from a comfy CAOC as many members of the Taliban put-putted their way across the desert on motorbikes, minding their own business (sort of) only to watch them disapppear in a cloud of black and white mist. Did I feel jumpy or sad about that? No. Chalk em up.
This will all be a pleasant memory in a few months.
Best of luck to those who stay in this undermanned RAF to sort out the myriad crises flaring up across 3 continents. (Sorry for my part in helping to cause some of them...!)
