[Shasown]

Originally Posted by WOMBAI

If I was the mother of that young soldier - I would be proud of him for having done his best and completing one tour of duty - which is a lot more than most do. I would also be relieved that he was in jail as opposed to being a target for the Taliban in Afghanistan!

A lot more than most do? Most what, youths, or soldiers. Because of the current and last governments' policy of manpower reduction the armed forces in general are very overstretched. I know of cases where certain personnel in the forces have spent 6 months on ops in Iraq come back to the UK for 2-3 months then deploy to Afghanistan for a further 6 months. So all in all matey boy got off quite lucky. I myself have done 4 on 4 off back to back operational tours both in the 80s and 90's and into the naughties

Remember he wasnt dismissed, wonder what will happen when he has done his time, will he stag on? (That means fit back in his unit and do as he is told, including future deployments?) If you watch the news and look through the lists of Casualties you will see by far the biggest number of casualties is in the infantry, followed by Bomb Disposal, he was and is in the Logistics Corps mostly cooks clerks and drivers. If he goes out of base he goes out in convoys which will be lead and protected by armoured vehicles from infantry units.