For those being deployed

[theundisputedtopgun]

For those of you in all of the armed forces being deployed to the gulf region i just want to say good luck and hope you all come back.

Wish i was five years older and going with the RAF

[Jeep]

Bravo that person.

Rather glad I am not 10 years younger this time.

[Gen. Bombdabastards]

Good luck fella's, just glad I left when I did.

I'll be watching with interest and thinking of you all.

[Kiting for Boys]

Crispian was martyred in Rome and is the Patron Saint of shoemakers and cobblers.

So the boots should be OK…

[Man-on-the-fence]

For what its worth you have the thoughts and best wishes of the family Fence going with you.

Come home safe, heroes one and all.

[Woff1965]

To all those destined for Operation Deny Easter, 4 points

1) Good luck.

2) Watch your backs.

3) Don't forget to duck when appropriate.

4) Remember the important thing in war is to make it home.

Thinking of all of you going in harm's way.

[SASless]

Private Murphy's Rules of Warfare

1. If the enemy is in range, SO ARE YOU.
2. If you can see them, they can see you.
3. Incoming fire has the right of way.
4. Friendly fire isn't.
5. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
6. Don't look conspicuous: it draws fire. This is why aircraft carriers are called bomb magnets.
7. There is always a way.
8. The easy way is always mined.
9. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
10. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.
11. The enemy invariably attacks on one of two occasions:
When you're ready for them.
When you're not ready for them.
12. Teamwork is essential it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at
13. If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you.
14. If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.
15. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
16. Don't draw fire, it irritates the people around you.
17. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
18. If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid.
19. When in doubt empty the magazine.
20. Never share a fox hole with anyone braver than you.
21. Anything you do can get you shot. Including doing nothing.
22. Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.
23. Mines are equal opportunity weapons.
24. A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
25. Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.
26. The quartermaster has only two sizes: too large and too small.
27. Five second fuses only last three seconds.
28. It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.
29. A " sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
30. If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone.
31. When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
32. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
33. You are not a superman.
34. No plan survives the first contact intact.
35. If you are forward of you position the artillery will always fall short.
36. The important things are always simple.
37. The simple things are always hard.
38. No combat ready unit ever passed inspection.
39. Beer math: two beers times 37 men equal 49 cases.
40. Body count math: two guerillas plus one portable plus two pigs equal 37 enemy KIA.
41. Things that must be together to work usually can't be shipped together.
42. Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support desperately.
43. Tracers work both ways.
44. Make it tough for the enemy to get in any you can't get out.
45. If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will have more than your fair share of objectives to take.
46. When both sides are convinced that they are about to lose, they are both right.
47. If it moves, shoot it.
48. If it doesn't move, poke it with your gun barrel and then shoot it.
49. Overkill works.
50. Murphy was a grunt.

To those who are going in harm's way this time.....honor those that fought before you and set the example for those that will fight after you! Keep yer noggin's down....and come home safe!

[Scud-U-Like]

Judging by the numbers going out there, it can only be a matter of time before the Military Aircrew forum changes to Middle Eastern time.

[Captain Gadget]

To Mr 'Undisputed Top Gun', from one who was in the Last Lot:

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitten as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen (killed in action just one week before the 1918 Armistice)

Sir (Madam?)

Your enthusiasm does you credit, but, may I suggest, could (and should) be more creatively directed. I suspect that few readers of this forum who are already, or are about to be, deployed to the Gulf share it. Having participated myself in the last Gulf conflict, I should imagine that their emotions about the whole business are ambivalent. This is emphatically not an insult to the members of our armed forces: professionals to a man (and woman), they will, as always, selflessly do our country credit in whatever capacity they are called upon to serve.

For yourself, I should thank your lucky stars that you are not five years older and going with the RAF. Just hope that, if the job has to be done, it is finished off properly this time - or else you may yet get your chance to try your hand at war poetry.

For the lads and lasses, good luck, God bless and homebound tailwinds.

Gadget

[YumYum]

For Haydn B

...can I have your egg?

smile, things could get worse....so I did smile, and things did get worse......

[Training Risky]

Good luck lads:cool:

But sadly, to paraphrase Edmund Blackadder:

"Don't worry Private, if you should falter just remember Tony Bliar and his cabinet are right behind you.....

...Thousands of miles behind you".

[Gen. Bombdabastards]

You can always stick a pair of Y fronts over your head and a couple of pencils up your nose and shout "wibble".



BAAAAAA!!!

[SASless]

Gadget,

It is one thing to have personal doubts about having to beard the Dragon....we have all had that to deal with when confronted with the prospects of our mortality when engaging in battle with an armed, aggressive, and capable enemy. That is natural. I understand that. Anyone who doesn't have those fears and concerns are very rare and someone who I wish to be well away from when the shooting starts. Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the ability to control those fears and perform your duty when called upon.

I will never question the motive of an individual who voices those very real fears....but I do question a military officer who slanders his superiors and questions their motives, integrity, and vision in times of national crisis. If you wear the uniform and thus accept the obligations that come with the commission, then you should keep counsel of your political concerns and remain silent and lead your troops. Otherwise, you should resign from the military service and exercise your rights under the freedoms provided by other brave men and women who wear the uniform and serve their fellow countrymen in an honorable way.

[Trout99uk]

To all those young ones i meet every year at RIAT who have just passed out, if any of you are going, make sure you come back, i will be thinking of you.:ok:

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Good luck and Best Wishes to all personnel who are being sent. My thoughts are and will be with you, and your famillies.

I am sorry that due to my incompetence last year I am not in a position to share your responsibility of making the world a safer place.

Good luck and take care.

[FJJP]

To both my sons - be safe, come home in one piece. Dad.

[Boy_From_Brazil]

I echo FJJP's post. God speed to my son. Fly safe, fly well and best of luck 'sausage side'.

[Talk Split]

To all RW crews. Best of luck and see you there. By the way, take some toilet paper.

[soddim]

Don't turn your back on the Rag 'eads.

[bad livin']

To all former 181ers...wish I was with you, but adoption of darker blue keeps me home!!!

Be back soon and safe.

d:}

[Zoom]

You're the best and that's why you're going. Remember not to stick around and admire your handiwork. Good luck.

[Captain Gadget]

SASless

Your post is obviously thoughtful, your style educated and your words most emphatically unminced...nonetheless, you seem to have missed the point.

I was simply trying to say that war, if and when it comes, will be as a result of the failure of more 'civilised' means; that it will be, for better or worse, messy; and to express a gung-ho desire to be able to 'kick some ass' (as Mr Bush might put it) is - whilst being in some ways to the poster's credit, as I said - perhaps not the most creative way of looking at it. Either I didn't put my point very well, or you didn't read it that way: hopefully this will set the record straight.

(Remainder edited out by poster in the interests of congenial Ppruning)

Gadget :cool:

[KENNYR]

ADUX and Green Bottle 2, I wish you every success with your mission and please come back to us, your family, with everything intact and your heads held high!

Best of luck from the Canadian connection.

[Chalkstripe]

Gadget, KennyR, SASless (and anyone else with a point to make)

Please. please, please do not allow this thread to become another vehicle for bickering (if you have to start a new one). Let's keep this one going in the manner that it was started.

God's speed, safe flying and come home safely chaps (wherever that may be).

Chalkstripe

[Spacer]

Best of luck to any of the guys that know me, and to all that don't. I'll see you all in the bar soon.

[Ralf Wiggum]

Hear - Hear Chalkstripe. Best of luck to all our Service Men & Women. Anyone with any other point to make should start a new theard and not hijack this one.

I'm in the last few days of my Service and sorry not to be a part of the whole thing, but I'm sure you don't need another old fool screwing up your good work. Come home safely, one & all.

[Basil]

Can't see for the life of me what Gadget said wrong :confused:

Anyway, best wishes to all - lets hope it can be done with minimum casualties on both sides.

Basil
(ex Army & RAF but never been shot at - except by our own 25pdr artillery:* )

[Captain Gadget]

Basil

Ta muchly - but I for one am going to 'go with the flow' and not further risk this thread degenerating into a slanging match (which was never my intention anyway).

Good luck and God bless in whatever enterprise is to come, guys 'n gals.

Gadget ;)

[tony draper]

Tins of Woodbines and Cocoa being inserted into food parcels, Balaclavers and thick wool socks being knitted furiously as we speak.
Good luck chaps and chapesses.

[KENNYR]

My apologies to you all.....it was not my intention to hijack this thread. I have removed the portion of the post that so offended you all..........Ken

[PPRuNe Pop]

I apologise to all those who feel that this thread deteriorated. I have to say that I agree. I regret now that I didn't bother to look in on such delicate and heartfelt wishes. Had I done so I would have had my thick pencil out.

This thread is now only to be used for the purpose it was started. Any deviation will be met by a miffed me and the possibility of a ban. Please show some respect.

Please...........people need to air their special thoughts on here. Knowing as they do that their finest might be called upon.

PPP

[Flatus Veteranus]

"A man who has nothing he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his own saftey, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself".

John Stuart Mill

Good luck and God speed to all those heading East. And thank you for your "exertions".

[Flip Flop Flyer]

Good hunting guys, come back safe and soon.

From a former Army type whos country will in all likelihood not participate in the 2nd edition of Desert Storm.

[OFBSLF]

My best friend's son is in the 101st. Published news reports indicate they are deploying somewhere (so I'm not violating OPSEC). To Chris and all of the others deployed or deploying: good luck, godspeed, good hunting, come home safe and sound.

[MightyGem]

Keep your powder dry gents. Did the last one, wouldn't have missed it, but once was enough. Take care.

[oldnotbold]

To all those being deployed.
If it comes to a scrap good luck & may all the Gods be with you.

[BlueWolf]

Good luck and Godspeed guys and girls, from one who won't ever be called to go, but who truly appreciates the professionalism and sacrifice of those who will.

Thoughts, prayers, and best wishes go with you.

Regards

RP