Do Americans Care about British Soldiers?

[Battenburg Bob]

We get a lot of American bashing on here, so I thought this article would redress the balance somewhat!

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/do-americans-care...

If you get the opportunity, read through Michaels Yons articles from Iraq and Afghanistan. They are superb.

[Zod]

Thank Heaven for the Americans, because Gordon Brown certainly doesn't care about them.

[Ali_D]

It would seem that the general population in the US hold the armed forces in much higher regard than the general population of the UK - it follows then that they also have a lot of respect for their allies.

Good work chaps! You're not bad even if you can't pronounce schedule correctly.

[Fittster]

Well it comes down to cash. If you want to do as much with as low as risk to the troops as possible it's going to cost more. Anyone up for a tax hike or reduced spending elsewhere (NHS, the OPs salary, etc)?

Do less, so troops home.

Or accept the fact that some troops are going to get killed in action.

[Nobaccymaccy]

What an amazing story - where there is a will there is a way ( so long as Will is an American )

[B Oeuf]

Battenburg Bob said:

We get a lot of American bashing on here, so I thought this article would redress the balance somewhat!

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/do-americans-care...

If you get the opportunity, read through Michaels Yons articles from Iraq and Afghanistan. They are superb.

NSFW......unless you're happy to openly blub, very, very moving

[mel]

I worked in Diego Garcia for a couple of years which for those of you that don't know is a tiny British island in the middle of the Indian Ocean which is leased to the American military as a mahoosive logistics support base and I mean MAHOOSIVE as in it's where most of the air sorties for both Irag and Afganistan are staged from along with having about 10 logistics ships crammed with hardware permanantly sitting in the lagoon on permanant standby for that part of the world, it's also one of the global GPS control stations and a secondary landing point for the Space Shuttle. It has approx 5,000 US military personnel about the same again in Phillipeno and Mauritian labour and around 40 Brits who run the islands Customs & Police units (it's a big drug intercept location).

So for that time I worked very very closely with the US military and it's totally true, they have a mind blowing amount of resource avaliable and think absolutely nothing of switching it on to help out their "friends" we used to almost daily we C130, C141, C5's diverted on mercy runs regardless of the uniform of the casualty, and if nothing was avaliable they'd even send a P3 Orion or even the little carrier based passenger thing (can't remember the number), on a lesser note while we were working there we also recieved some of the best medical and dental care you could imagine all gratis.

On a side note though it's not just the Americans I also got helped out a few times by Australians and Kiwis who also used the American facility, including hitching a freebie lift with the australian air force down to Townsville and I know damm sure that the rest of the international forces in Afganistan also swing whatever resources they've got to save lives for each other.

[Parrot of Doom]

Diego Garcia is a somewhat unfortunate subject to include in a topic about one group of people caring about another...

[hairyben]

My brother in law is ex marine, now coastguard, I can say having visited them the yanks in general have very high & quite geniune regard for all military personnel, and are able to dissociate this from their opinions on a particular conflict. My sis was telling him about the UK hotel that refused two squaddies a room, he couldn't believe it- if anyone tried that stateside the hotel would be boycotted, if not torched.

[V8S]

Parrot of Doom said:

Diego Garcia is a somewhat unfortunate subject to include in a topic about one group of people caring about another...

Do you mean the original inhabitants of the island?

[spaximus]

When I was in the States Budwiser group give free entrance to Bush Gardens and seaworld to all allied troops. They also mention the forces and have those in the whale show stand up to receive applause. They do appreciate that the forces do a hard job, if only we held our own so high.

What is sad is we do not have the equipment to look after our own people but glad others let us use theirs

[Frankeh]

hairyben said:

My brother in law is ex marine, now coastguard, I can say having visited them the yanks in general have very high & quite geniune regard for all military personnel, and are able to dissociate this from their opinions on a particular conflict. My sis was telling him about the UK hotel that refused two squaddies a room, he couldn't believe it- if anyone tried that stateside the hotel would be boycotted, if not torched.

We beasted my RAF friend into using the line "I just got back from Afghanistan" to try and get us into the VIP line. He used it, resentfully, and got told by the door woman "I don't agree with that war anyway"..
So we obviously laughed at him and went on our way.
But then it made me wonder, what didn't she agree with? There's not much to disagree with when it comes to afghanistan.
Iraq, I understand.

I should have talked to her some more

[Eric Mc]

The US Navy "passenger" aircraft is the Grumman C-2 Greyhound (based on the E-2 Hawkeye).

[350GT]

Eric Mc said:

The US Navy "passenger" aircraft is the Grumman C-2 Greyhound (based on the E-2 Hawkeye).

And this is certainly the very thread in which to start posting pictures of planes...

[Eric Mc]

Any chance - I'm in there


Just to warn what our chaps are up against - sometimes.

Edited by Eric Mc on Wednesday 19th August 16:26

[mel]

V8S said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Diego Garcia is a somewhat unfortunate subject to include in a topic about one group of people caring about another...

Do you mean the original inhabitants of the island?

Tis' true it was the last example that I know of true "Empire Gun Boat Diplomacy" and certainly nothing for the UK to be proud of, having also been to Peros Banos the next largest island in the Archepeligo I can honestly say that there is no way that that Island would support life for any length of time which was where the Islanders were originally relocated to, in fairness and looking at it through the eyes of the 21st century it would have actually been perfectly feasible for the Islanders to have have remained on the island and continued to live in the Plantation area which is the complete opposite end to the area now developed by the US military and is actually a very strictly controlled nature reserve and the home of the some critically endangered species. The island has actually got a very impressive enviromental policy and is a shining example of how such a big infastructure can co exist next to such a delicate eco system with minimal impact. However I agree the UK & US have nothing to be proud of as to how they originally treated the Islanders back in the early 70's but we digress and this has nothing to do with the actual thread

[V8S]

mel said:

V8S said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Diego Garcia is a somewhat unfortunate subject to include in a topic about one group of people caring about another...

Do you mean the original inhabitants of the island?

Tis' true it was the last example that I know of true "Empire Gun Boat Diplomacy" and certainly nothing for the UK to be proud of, having also been to Peros Banos the next largest island in the Archepeligo I can honestly say that there is no way that that Island would support life for any length of time which was where the Islanders were originally relocated to, in fairness and looking at it through the eyes of the 21st century it would have actually been perfectly feasible for the Islanders to have have remained on the island and continued to live in the Plantation area which is the complete opposite end to the area now developed by the US military and is actually a very strictly controlled nature reserve and the home of the some critically endangered species. The island has actually got a very impressive enviromental policy and is a shining example of how such a big infastructure can co exist next to such a delicate eco system with minimal impact. However I agree the UK & US have nothing to be proud of as to how they originally treated the Islanders back in the early 70's but we digress and this has nothing to do with the actual thread

Simon Winchester's book Outposts is worth a read, about lots of far-flung British possessions and how they came about. Diego Garcia is covered in one chapter including him sailing a boat into the harbour there which they weren't too happy about.

[collateral]

It's a different culture over there. It's quite a regular thing to enlist after graduating high school (I know of quite a few that did, and they pay your college tuition too), whereas here I think it's pretty rare.

[V8S]

collateral said:

It's a different culture over there. It's quite a regular thing to enlist after graduating high school (I know of quite a few that did, and they pay your college tuition too), whereas here I think it's pretty rare.

Are they enlisting to be able to afford a college education, perhaps?

[redtwin]

That's the reason 2 of my cousins enlisted. The ROTC program is quite popular.