Don't live in Peterborough do you?

Les

 

i believe this country has gone to the dogs due to the attitudes of individuals who believe respect should be given not earned. i dont really care what creed,colour or religion someone is treat me decently and i will do the same for you .i live in a town were there is very few people of differant origin and i am not racist due to my upbringing . i am 36, i grew up in a single parent family on a council estate yet i go to work and pay my way in life not expecting a free ride ,it seems to be the mentallity of some people that they believe sod going to work let the state pay and then moan when they dont have enough.

aslong as we let individuals in society get away with crimes and dont take the appropriate action ie a punishment that fits the crime not a holiday for individual at the tax payer expense it will continue . political correctness has gone mad you cant do this ,you can do that for fear of upseting someone . say things as it is without being rude or offensive .if it upsets then maybe there is something in what has been said that is true. there are to many biggots in society

just my opinion . know doubt others have theirs

 

Well said. Couldn't agree more.

I would go on with my feelings, but it would be long winded and would simply serve to bore everyone to death.

 

How true

 

Good post Lisa. Despite the fact that I had a career in the RAF, I spent a great deal of my time trying to do my best to prevent a war from ever starting.

I consider war to be an obscene waste of life and destruction of property and I have actually noticed that it is always started by politicians rather then members of the Forces.

I was of course fully prepared to go to war if it so happened since it was my duty to do my best to defend the country should the worst happen.

I have the utmost respect for the blokes out in Iraq and Afghanistan who are also doing their duty and risking their lives even if it is sometimes difficult to see how they can hope to succeed under the circumstances and the well below par practical backing from those in charge!

Les

 

But why is it assumed that it is any of these groups? Especially given reports that the abuse came from a cross section of the community.

 

To be fair I meant to put etc.on the end.

My point was it is kind of irrelevant which part of the 'community' was doing the abusing, it is unnacceptable regardless. As usual, parts of this thread were descending into a focus on who was abusing and going down the route of the typical generalisation and slagging off of certain groups, rather than focusing on the issue at hand.

To start slagging people off is as bad as what is being complained about here, that is why I wasn't putting this down to anyone section of society.

Hope this answers your question.

 

Whoever was responsible for the verbal abuse of our lads ( and no doubt lassies), I hope they at some time in the not too distant future have cause to visit Peterborough General Hospital. Oh did I forget to mention ?....sorry, That should be , Peterborough RAF general Hospital. By crikey What an opportunity for some sweet revenge.

My Mum was a patient in there before Crimbo and I can't praise the staff highly enough. Smart, clean, courteous, efficient, communicative and excellent at their job.

The abusers should be strung up.
Yve

 

long post alert...!!!

thanks in advance to those that take the time to read it...

ive probably been guilty of making slightly ill informed posts before, and ive tried to be more selective recently in the posts i do make, especially when theyre opinion based, but im going to chuck in my two pence here...

im a currently serving member of the forces, with 18 years in and 4 to go...im not going to say what it is i do as im not particularly enamoured with my job at the moment but ive served 5 years in NI, pre and post cease fire, and ive spent in total somewhere in the region of 3 years serving in the balkans, iraq and afghanistan, just to give you an idea of my background...by the way, im not a front line soldier, ive mainly been a force 'enabler'...!!!

anyway, as it stands, im largely not in favour of the iraq/afghanistan conflicts and ill tell you why...not only do i believe they are mainly the manifestation of bush/blairs personal political agendas, i believe we are having the same problems we were during the troubles in NI in that we are being expected to fight a guerilla war by conventional rules of warfare which essentially means we have our hands tied...

as les mentions above, i would willingly (maybe not happily) risk my life for queen and country...not some f*cker elses country for some f*cker elses personal agenda...!!!

our troops out there are nothing more than cannon fodder in most cases...surely high intensity special operations fighting the enemy on their own terms (except without suicide bombers) is the way forward, not just arbitrarily putting the lads in the firing line to little effect...? this has worked to an extent in past conflicts...

i remember when i found out that they couldnt find the WMD's in iraq...i was in the region at the time, and when i saw CNN/BBC news who seemed to be taking great pleasure in announcing it, i felt terribly betrayed as i had deployed there in good faith (as you do)...i was cynical before that, but as a result of everything thats happened since, ive become even more so...

i do believe in protecting british interests abroad i.e. the falklands (even though some would argue there were other reasons for that conflict than the obvious), and even the first gulf war was probably largely justifiable, but whats happening now is surely going to suck us further into a situation that ultimately wont be worth the lost lives, both military and civilian...?

as for the mistreatment of the lads in p'boro, i believe that any scumbag who abuses a uniformed member of the military or emergency services needs to be dealt with extremely harshly...will they be though? will they f*ck...!!!

thanks again for reading...

bri

 

Not that longer post and well worth the read mate:

Good luck with your tour

 

Echo that.

DUring Ross Kemp in Afgahnistan it became clear that the guys weren't fighting for queen and country, but for each other.


Whatever you think about the war, there really isn't any justification in abusing those that are simply doing thier job.

 

A very valid point Pete. It's certainly nothing new, reading Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade there is a line echoing this sentiment. 'Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew someone had blunder'd.'

The Charge Of The Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

i second that have a good tour . stay low move fast.

 

Hi Paul and thanks.

I disagree with your points however: Look again at the Infractions, what was said is frankly no worse than the comments made about Muslims, it's as simple as that. (The masturbation comment was metaphoric, I believe, as opposed to literal.) But of course, issuing Infractions is down to peoples' perceptions, thereby confirming my view of the 'over defensiveness' of some folk on here.

Regarding your comment about what if Muslims were all referred to in that way, well, they are. Look at this thread alone. And I can find you lots and lots of other examples on SN. I do not see any uproar in response, nor call for beheadings, nor Jihad being declared. Can you?

Yet, as a member of SN, I have to put up with reading mindless, anti Muslim drivel day after day. Usually from apparently well informed and intelligent individuals, for whom it has become second nature to spout this rubbish.

My view is: to dare to speak out against a certain point of view on here, is to bring on the wrath of the SN Fascist Browbeaters upon yourself. Now I am not given to amateur dramatics, so I firmly believe this to be true.

It's a shame.

Asif

 

I agree 100% with asif. Looks like the bully boys have been out in the playground again, tch tch tch.

 

what i dont understand is how service personel and thier families dont expect to get stick its WAR! that means people killing each other what ever the rights and wrongs of it those on either side of the argument are not going to agree thats why they resorted to violence in the first place! joining the armed forces makes you a target i mean for **** sake the RAF even put one on there planes for the enemy to aim at!! its a bit of a non sensical argument and feelings are bound to run high as the stakes are high some pay the ultimate price for what essentially is the greed and power hungriness of others.. long gone are the days of a young people joining the forces and going off on a jolly and learning a trade. the enemy is very good at what it does as you would expect afterall it was our armed forces that trained them!

 

While I totally agree with the OP, housing issues are just as distored in the press as lack of kit seems to be. where you come from doesn't affect your priority for housing (in most areas now you can't be housed at all if you don't have a strong local connection), it's things like kids, pregnancy (much exploited by teenagers and their parents), disability etc, not race.

I'm not making a statement for / against immegration, just poiniting out a common Daily Mail - driven misconception.

 

My opinion is that I wouldn't abuse anyone in the army or raf or whatever. I see these people in a similar way to how I see cleaners, police, dustmen and many other 'service' types. I can't understand why they would choose to do that job (probably because I am a selfish person) but I understand that we need these types of people for the world to work and for me to have my choice of life.
To abuse them is to undermine what puts me in a position to be free to abuse them..

 

Good post Brihoppy, good luck for the rest of your service.

It has to be remembered, as has been mentioned, that if you are in the Services and are ordered by the politicians of the time to go and possibly die in a foreign country and not necessarily seeming to be defending your own, that you have no option but to go and do it. Even if you are serving in Afghanistan with no significant backing from much of the rest of Nato whose troops are kept out of the dangerous action, and you are trying to do a job which the vast majority of the Russian forces failed to achieve.

As I said it is always down to the politicians and they have lived up to that "in Spades" in recent conflicts.

Another big worry of course is that the Fire and Ambulance Services are also often targeted by the mindless hooligans.

Les

 

i can see what you are saying ,but i can only comment on personnel experience. i was told word of mouth from a member of the council . my partner had lived in the town for 8yrs prior to moving with me to northern ireland as a army wife. the only reason she wanted to move back was after being verbally abused at a well known supermarket because she was english. basically told to get the **** home you english slag.

 

'Relevant' article (Peterborough related)

BBC NEWS | Magazine | The £7-per-hour jobs locals don't want

 

£25k a year on £7 per hour!!!

Thats ALOT of hours

Aren't these things only available in winter too?

 

Well it wasn't me dishing out the infractions - I'm very aware that what I do allows people to say whatever they want, even when its a load of utter bollocks - to infract someone on here because I don't agree with their opinion would be a bit hypocritical.

Brihoppy is right about not many military being that convinced (understatement) about Iraq, but as members of the military disobeying orders isn't something we can do. Look at Fiji if you want an example of what can occur if that happens.

 

Hi Asif,

Keep posting, it is always good to see the other side of things, IMHO your posts are well thought out (not wishing to be patronising) and balanced.

FWIW 99.9 of the muslims i have met are decent law abiding and respectful of others and their views.

 

Is this why half of the RLC is now Fijian.

 

I'm keeping my mouth shut.

 

and why the army rugby team might as well probably be the fijian national team...?!?!

 

It is a sad state of affairs that Servicemen and women get abused when wearing their uniform in the streets.

In America, it is compulsory to wear your dress uniform when travelling home, especially on public transport. It puts the Military in the public eye and allows the civilians to see their defenders and protectors up close.

When I have been over in the US in uniform in public, I am constantly stopped in the street and thanked by members of the public. I even get offered free beers in any hotels we stay in! If only the public would treat our servicemen like that.

Just to add, Royal Navy personnel are encouraged to wear their uniform in public, so why not the Army and RAF?

***** to all these 'loudmouths' and wanna-be Jihadi's, Armed Forces personnel should be proud to wear their uniform in public, and if they were ever abused, I would expect other members of the public to set about these idiots! Otherwise we are just giving in to them. We are an Armed FORCE, not the Girl Guides!

P.S. If you would like to show your support to our Armed Forces, please take time out to make a small donation to HELP FOR HEROES. Its for a great cause.

Thank You.