I’m originally from Liverpool…I’m really going to buy The Sun aren’t I!. Dont know what the Matthew Kyle show is but I’ll hazard a guess at something like Parkinson?.

You cant see the funny side because you’re a civvy who doesnt understand the service ethos in the Royal Navy. Thats no accusation – just statement of simple fact. If you knew the institutional character involved you would react differently.

By taking this action the MoD may be hailed as acting distastefully, but, there will be large chunks of the Royal Navy that are extraordinarily amused that someones going to pay a bunch of matelots for their dits.

The line about the sickening loss of 4 personnel in Basra I find hard to understand in the context of the 15 Navy personnel writing stories?. Do you mean its somehow ‘not fair’ that the sailors can write their stories and the soldiers cant?.

To be honest Ren I find that an incredible statement if that is what you meant?. I would again advise you that you do not understand the services mindset if you do think that as there is no way that a matelot would expect a squaddie to pass up a daft amount of money telling an absolutely unrelated story to the press if the roles where reversed.

Jonsey, I can take your points about the mindset that comes from being in the services and if you see these events as a bit of an ‘in joke’ that the ‘civvies’ wouldn’t understand, then fair enough…?

But as you correctly assert, I am a civilian on the outside looking in and I did find it extremely distasteful that the navy personnel were granted permission to ‘sell their stories’ on the day four of their army colleagues were so publicly slaughtered in Iraq. How do you think the ‘civvy’ families of those dead soldiers might feel reading the news that not only were the navy people lucky enough to be freed unhurt from what could have become a deadly situation, and then to be allowed to capitalise on their experiences by making money from commercial agencies, whilst their loved ones body parts were being put into plastic bags ?

Yes, I know there are people who would see it as just a chance to make a few quid for those guys, but IMHO that kind of opportunism should be left to the kind of trailer trash that appear on TV shows such as ‘Matthew Kyle’ and ‘Trisha’. It’s not the kind of behaviour I expect the MoD to encourage or our servicemen and women to indulge in. But what the heck do I know ?

Oh and BTW those TV shows I mention are daytime talk shows normally aimed at the lowest common denominator and generally based around such intelligent discussion topics such as infidelity, inter-family relationships, absent parents and ‘What to do with little Timmy Chav/ned/junkie/alcoholic?’ :rolleyes: Kind of like a domestic dispute live every morning on ITV.:D