I like the Brits. Heck, I carried a freaking stove into Iraq, so I can have tea with them (I was the only guy with a working stove an fuel for miles around so I had plenty of tea time).
When we were not properly supported by our unit, the Brits opened up their arms (and mess hall particularly) to my team, and we were well fed.
But the British Army is composed of human being, just like any other service.
The British have a complex very similar to the U.S. Marine Corps. They have a long tradition, high values, and honorable service. These components, when added with time and suffering, tend to make people think they are elite, better than the rest. Sometimes its true, but for the most part its not. It is also a complex shared by the European Community (EU). They are older, wiser, more educated, diplomatic blah, blah, blah. We Americans are arrogant, impulsive, cowboys and religious.
They have their good guys, they have their mediocre ones and they have their bad apples. This is human nature and it will never change. Utopia is not around the corner and until then, we will have to work with what chance and environment places within our grasps.
Terry mentions the willingness to accept more casualties. I think the British Army has a more "romantic" way of looking at conflict and war. I hate to use that word, thinking that it is outdated and crude. Our own officers probably had more of a willingness to accept more casualties, when it was a gentleman's call (or duty) to lead the destitute and ignorant masses into the fray (kind of like today?).
Now, we are less willing (or less romantic) because people are not that stupid anymore. Granted, I assume many of you will take a bullet for a friend, or jump on top of a grenade to protect the team, but other than that, we are very selfish, we like our skin and bones and we tend to think about surviving.
Commanding officers sometimes have to make a tough decision when leading their elements. "Should I commit a platoon to certain slaugther, while I maneuver the rest of the company in a flanking formation to annihilate the enemy". Granted, if he/she succeeds, he gets a medal or two. If he fails, he might die, but I can guarantee that many of his troops will die too.
Wow. I forgot where I was going with this.
Yeah. People are people, no matter where they are from. And people also have a centrist view on things, a ethnocentric way of understanding things, so it will take time for the US to learn how to deal with other cultures. Remember: European countries might be more successful, because they had to deal with their colonies. When you are (or were) an imperialist/expansionist kingdom, you had better learn how to deal with the natives.
Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
When we were not properly supported by our unit, the Brits opened up their arms (and mess hall particularly) to my team, and we were well fed.
But the British Army is composed of human being, just like any other service.
The British have a complex very similar to the U.S. Marine Corps. They have a long tradition, high values, and honorable service. These components, when added with time and suffering, tend to make people think they are elite, better than the rest. Sometimes its true, but for the most part its not. It is also a complex shared by the European Community (EU). They are older, wiser, more educated, diplomatic blah, blah, blah. We Americans are arrogant, impulsive, cowboys and religious.
They have their good guys, they have their mediocre ones and they have their bad apples. This is human nature and it will never change. Utopia is not around the corner and until then, we will have to work with what chance and environment places within our grasps.
Terry mentions the willingness to accept more casualties. I think the British Army has a more "romantic" way of looking at conflict and war. I hate to use that word, thinking that it is outdated and crude. Our own officers probably had more of a willingness to accept more casualties, when it was a gentleman's call (or duty) to lead the destitute and ignorant masses into the fray (kind of like today?).
Now, we are less willing (or less romantic) because people are not that stupid anymore. Granted, I assume many of you will take a bullet for a friend, or jump on top of a grenade to protect the team, but other than that, we are very selfish, we like our skin and bones and we tend to think about surviving.
Commanding officers sometimes have to make a tough decision when leading their elements. "Should I commit a platoon to certain slaugther, while I maneuver the rest of the company in a flanking formation to annihilate the enemy". Granted, if he/she succeeds, he gets a medal or two. If he fails, he might die, but I can guarantee that many of his troops will die too.
Wow. I forgot where I was going with this.
Yeah. People are people, no matter where they are from. And people also have a centrist view on things, a ethnocentric way of understanding things, so it will take time for the US to learn how to deal with other cultures. Remember: European countries might be more successful, because they had to deal with their colonies. When you are (or were) an imperialist/expansionist kingdom, you had better learn how to deal with the natives.