What a waste, what a fool.
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OH, it may well have been a cry for help.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Has the law changed with the changes to the CM system or could he now face civil charges?
If one was so charged, having been dismissed the Service, I would imagine anyone in the CoC who had been award of previous transgressions would be called to attest the triviality or otherwise of previous transgressions.
Overthawk, no serious dispute on any points you made in re current position as squadron commander and officer in HM's forces.
My thought has been moving toward future employment, an issue which some had raised in discussion here.
As before: not the first to step on a land mine, or manage a self inflicted wound after a solid career as a high performer.
Nor the last.
My thought has been moving toward future employment, an issue which some had raised in discussion here.
As before: not the first to step on a land mine, or manage a self inflicted wound after a solid career as a high performer.
Nor the last.
OH, it may well have been a cry for help.
Then surely that argument would have formed part of a plea in mitigation at his CM, as would any claim of combat stress, overwork or whatever. I am sad for the guy, but on what we have seen IMHO a "no brainer"
Then surely that argument would have formed part of a plea in mitigation at his CM, as would any claim of combat stress, overwork or whatever. I am sad for the guy, but on what we have seen IMHO a "no brainer"
mad_jock, Are you inferring that a bottle of scotch and the Mess Webley would have been quicker and cheaper?
It astonishes me that anyone could find any mitigation for this event. As a senior officer, he knew perfectly well what he was doing was totally against military and civil law.
Full marks to whoever reported him. This was not 'grassing up a mate', it was the act of someone with the moral strength to ensure that the RAF was rid of a senior officer openly contemptuous of the RAF's firm policy concerning illegal drugs, for whom there is absolutely no place in the Armed Forces of the Crown.
It astonishes me that anyone could find any mitigation for this event. As a senior officer, he knew perfectly well what he was doing was totally against military and civil law.
Full marks to whoever reported him. This was not 'grassing up a mate', it was the act of someone with the moral strength to ensure that the RAF was rid of a senior officer openly contemptuous of the RAF's firm policy concerning illegal drugs, for whom there is absolutely no place in the Armed Forces of the Crown.
BEags,
For once I am 100% with you on this. I am simply astonished that standards have changed so much in the relatively short time since I left that any aspect of this sorid episode could be seen as "letting off steam" or something that could be dealt with with a quick word on Monday morning.
Personal weakness to take the drugs in the first place is one (albeit serious) matter, persuading other, more junior officers, to join him is beyond contempt.
For once I am 100% with you on this. I am simply astonished that standards have changed so much in the relatively short time since I left that any aspect of this sorid episode could be seen as "letting off steam" or something that could be dealt with with a quick word on Monday morning.
Personal weakness to take the drugs in the first place is one (albeit serious) matter, persuading other, more junior officers, to join him is beyond contempt.
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I think everyone knows that, least of all the person involved. We all have feet of clay (well, most of us it seems) and I'm sure he will have found out who his real mates are, I'm sure he has learned a sharp lesson from it and I'm sure that doing drugs didn't in isolation, make him a great bloke or a pratt. I certainly did when I went through my 4/5 years or so or rehab, consequently, I became far less judgemental. I called in to the Royal College of Defence Medicine this week whilst at QE2 hospital in Brum and never fail to be invigourated by the positivity and.. 'good' shown by people.
Loyalty shouldn't be misplaced, and I agree that he probably showed not a lot. And I'm glad for him, his mates, his pax and the Service that he got caught. I'm also sure that he of all knows it more than anyone. But this Christmas, lets spare a thought for his future and his circumstances, and especially those of his lad. I suspect his forthcoming battle will prove a far more reliable indicator of his mettle and his character than that seemingly demonstrated by him doing coke at some Xmas bash, trying to impress.
I first heard about this a few days after it happened and my initial, instinctive thoughts were vented against the person who (scuttlebutt) was alleged to have introduced the substance.. to my simple mind, that smacked (sorry
) of premeditated intent to undermine the ethos, all he wanted to do, from the sounds of it, wanted to impress after a few drinks too many. I have seen too much evidence of coke impact at different stages of the impact cycle at Canary Wharf and Shaftesbury Avenue to be outraged but I know (and the lives of Pax are to important to be trusted to my anecdotal evidence, sure) who operate for years with no discernible drop off in performance.
That is not me justifying it. I'm not condoning what he did at all, not at all.. I wouldn't want to fly with him for quite a few years. But would I completely shed any faith I had in him? No, because life isn't binary, it isn't black and white. The older I get, the harder I have to try to resist falling into the trap of viewing life through age induced polarising filters (all I have to work on now, is long, pompous posts). He screwed up, he will know that. Let's show some of the qualities of loyalty and esprit de corps that admittedly, he failed to, by making sure that even after screwing up, this guy has a track record of doing the biz and when all is said and done, is still one of us.
If you didn't like him before, you won't now. If you liked him before, you probably won't now. But it's more a measure of us about how we react and act. Good luck to him, I hope he turns it around.
Loyalty shouldn't be misplaced, and I agree that he probably showed not a lot. And I'm glad for him, his mates, his pax and the Service that he got caught. I'm also sure that he of all knows it more than anyone. But this Christmas, lets spare a thought for his future and his circumstances, and especially those of his lad. I suspect his forthcoming battle will prove a far more reliable indicator of his mettle and his character than that seemingly demonstrated by him doing coke at some Xmas bash, trying to impress.
I first heard about this a few days after it happened and my initial, instinctive thoughts were vented against the person who (scuttlebutt) was alleged to have introduced the substance.. to my simple mind, that smacked (sorry
) of premeditated intent to undermine the ethos, all he wanted to do, from the sounds of it, wanted to impress after a few drinks too many. I have seen too much evidence of coke impact at different stages of the impact cycle at Canary Wharf and Shaftesbury Avenue to be outraged but I know (and the lives of Pax are to important to be trusted to my anecdotal evidence, sure) who operate for years with no discernible drop off in performance. That is not me justifying it. I'm not condoning what he did at all, not at all.. I wouldn't want to fly with him for quite a few years. But would I completely shed any faith I had in him? No, because life isn't binary, it isn't black and white. The older I get, the harder I have to try to resist falling into the trap of viewing life through age induced polarising filters (all I have to work on now, is long, pompous posts). He screwed up, he will know that. Let's show some of the qualities of loyalty and esprit de corps that admittedly, he failed to, by making sure that even after screwing up, this guy has a track record of doing the biz and when all is said and done, is still one of us.
If you didn't like him before, you won't now. If you liked him before, you probably won't now. But it's more a measure of us about how we react and act. Good luck to him, I hope he turns it around.
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One of our boys is down. Years of loyal service wasted.
A disaster, a career ruined, a family in crisis, everything lost. No winners here.
But "Judge not yet you too be judged"
A disaster, a career ruined, a family in crisis, everything lost. No winners here.
But "Judge not yet you too be judged"
Originally Posted by BEags
mad_jock, Are you inferring that a bottle of scotch and the Mess Webley would have been quicker and cheaper?
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He'll be better off in the long run, obviously you can't misuse in service life. I'm sure he'll have plenty of work earning much more than he was on, with half the risk. Just hope the bloke can see the long term bigger picture, rather than his immediate 'bleak' future. Good luck.
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One of our boys is down. Years of loyal service wasted.
A disaster, a career ruined, a family in crisis, everything lost. No winners here.
But "Judge not yet you too be judged"
A disaster, a career ruined, a family in crisis, everything lost. No winners here.
But "Judge not yet you too be judged"
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I wasn't actually meaning that option.
Its just I can't believe this has been a long term feature of his life and career in the RAF to get to his position.
Something has led to this and at some point he must have been putting out indicators that he wasn't dealing with life very well.
If these indicators were ignored just to get a backside in a seat then the organisation is just as much a failure as the person in this situation.
I have seen a couple of people gone down a spiral different ways of self harm to themselves and others. One was a similar aged bloke with a 19 year old girl and the other alcohol. And it was pretty obvious what was going on for a year before the inevitable blow up. And one took the car exhaust get out option which failed but does stop you flying.
I am not saying he is blameless by any stretch. Just that a system which uses people with their consent the way the mil does needs to look after expensive resource's.
I also feel that people in the armed forces of today are under completely different work and stress loads than in my day.
So as such it was more a negative comment towards the organisation than anything else for poor man management and backup.
In my day if someone came back on camp after a divorce etc they were watched and it wasn't unusual for them to disappear for a bit on some adventure training to get them away from bars and the weekend lash ups.
I suspect this guy was just deployed and nobody had a clue and or had bigger worry's on their minds than this chap was having to deal with divorce proceedings via email.
Its just I can't believe this has been a long term feature of his life and career in the RAF to get to his position.
Something has led to this and at some point he must have been putting out indicators that he wasn't dealing with life very well.
If these indicators were ignored just to get a backside in a seat then the organisation is just as much a failure as the person in this situation.
I have seen a couple of people gone down a spiral different ways of self harm to themselves and others. One was a similar aged bloke with a 19 year old girl and the other alcohol. And it was pretty obvious what was going on for a year before the inevitable blow up. And one took the car exhaust get out option which failed but does stop you flying.
I am not saying he is blameless by any stretch. Just that a system which uses people with their consent the way the mil does needs to look after expensive resource's.
I also feel that people in the armed forces of today are under completely different work and stress loads than in my day.
So as such it was more a negative comment towards the organisation than anything else for poor man management and backup.
In my day if someone came back on camp after a divorce etc they were watched and it wasn't unusual for them to disappear for a bit on some adventure training to get them away from bars and the weekend lash ups.
I suspect this guy was just deployed and nobody had a clue and or had bigger worry's on their minds than this chap was having to deal with divorce proceedings via email.
Last edited by mad_jock; 13th Dec 2014 at 05:56.
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maybe I am to much of an engineer and react to a human failure with the same process as I would with an equipment failure.
If a high capital piece of equipment fails you would have a look at its use and maintenance.
Has its use exceeded its design.
Has the maintenance been lacking or out of schedule.
If a parameter has been exceeded suitable remedial maintenance will be performed and then the unit put back into service with increased monitoring to prevent failure again.
Quite often you find that it becomes the most dependable bit of plant in the factory.
If a high capital piece of equipment fails you would have a look at its use and maintenance.
Has its use exceeded its design.
Has the maintenance been lacking or out of schedule.
If a parameter has been exceeded suitable remedial maintenance will be performed and then the unit put back into service with increased monitoring to prevent failure again.
Quite often you find that it becomes the most dependable bit of plant in the factory.
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What an excellent metaphor
Shown a picture of a very complicated piece of new machinery, that had just been placed on our charge, we were asked to write down all the questions we would need answers to before using it.
Everything from safety instructions, power requirements, operating instructions, manpower requirements etc. was listed.
We were then shown another picture of a very 'complicated piece of equipment' ie a Playboy centrefold pin-up!
We were then asked to read out some of our questions we'd written down. A hilarious 10 minutes ensued as our questions were then read out and related to the pin-up. My favourites were ' would it have to be bolted to the floor prior to use?' and 'would I need any special tools to service it?'
When the laughter had died down we were then show a picture of
AC1 Bloggs, who has just arrived on the Sqdn fresh from training.
The point being made that young Bloggs is extremely complicated and valuable but would we enquire as deeply about what made him tick, as we would the piece of machinery?
I used it to good effect when training IT engineers with regard to their dealing with our customers.
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Seems to me you need to fcuk the fighter jocks out of the management team and promote engineers into running the show.
Just saying like.
So to be honest the title of this thread should be "what a waste, what a BUNCH OF FOOLS "
Just saying like.
So to be honest the title of this thread should be "what a waste, what a BUNCH OF FOOLS "
Last edited by mad_jock; 13th Dec 2014 at 19:36.