For those being deployed
 

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

Bravo that person.

Rather glad I am not 10 years younger this time.

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

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

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

So the boots should be OK…

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.

Good Luck
 

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.

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!

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.

Dulce et decorum est...
 

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

For Haydn B

...can I have your egg?

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

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".

Sound Advice
 

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



BAAAAAA!!!

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.

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:

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Be back soon and safe.

d:}