SBT Newspaper 06 Jul 17

05 FORTNIGHTLY 06/07/17
the uK’s no: 1 Veterans Magazine
IT AIN’T ALL BAD - TIME TO PULL UP A SANDBAG
Tales from the Trench
(Or time to pull up a sandbag)
One of the best things about serving in the
British Forces is the humour. Troops are,
well, let’s just say ‘warped’ and at times
they need to be to do the things the
Governments ask them to do. But the
problem lies in the things they get up to
when they get bored. Sometime ago, the
Sandbag Times ran a section called ‘Pull
Up A Sandbag’. I think it may have been
a little too soon to throw all that at people
back then so I’m going to try it again now.
So sit back, relax, grab a brew and enjoy
the Tales from the Trench.
Air Supremecy taken too far
Falkland Islands 1992 (Anon)
There is no way to describe life on the
Falkland Islands without laughing. A
barren Island with no trees, lots of rocks,
sheep and penguins. The good thing
about it is the camp at Mount Pleasant
Airport. the main building is 2 miles long
accomodating around 2,000 troops of all
shapes, sizes and flavours. (Army, RN,
RaF, etc). Amazing place with no end of
boredom killing antics being played out in
every corridor, nook and cranny. Bin
diving comes to mind here, I’ll just let your
imagination run wild with that.
Anyway, I was posted there with the RIC
(Resident Infantry Company) which consisted
of chaps from 1st Bn Royal
Hampshire Regiment and 2nd Bn Queens
Regiment, soon to become the Princess
of Wales’s Royal Regiment. Good bunch
of guys!!
During my brief stay, I got to know one of
the crews from the Hurcules flight, 1312
sqn, and manager to jump on board for a
few mail drops and air-to-air refuelling of
the F4 Phantoms that were acting as
Close Air Support, pretty cool really.
Unfortunately. some bright spark in the
higher echilons decided to replace the
trusty Phantoms with four brand new F3
Tornados, along with that, brand new aircrews
who were, for want of a better word,
bloody lunatics.
It wasn’t long before trouble broke out
when, after a heavy night in the mess, a
bunch of Tornado pilots thought it would
be funny to pour some oil around the front
wheel of a Hurcules. After several days of
investigative maintenance and realising
there was nothing wrong, it took no time
to realise that the guilty party was their
new, fast jet neighbours.
So, not to be outdone, and taken in great
RAF humour the Hurcules sqn got their
own back by flour bombing the Tornado
crew room from the air. Very messy,
unfortunately the military police contingent,
who were yet to sign out a sense of
humour from the stores, threw a wobbly
shouting out all kinds of obscenities such
as FOD and Danger to Aircraft and other
stuff like that.
So, not to be outdone, when all the mess
was cleaned up and the Police were
happy, the Tornado crew, again after a few
sherberts, decided to paint a big hand
underneath one of the Hurcs with the
middle finger rampant. Unfortunately, this
time, the Station Commander saw it and
asked politely for all aircrews to grow up.
Not to be Outdone, the Hurcules Flight,
now getting slightly miffed with the whole
thing decided to buzz the Tornado crew
room with a 37 tonne plane, at a height
where one could have hitched a lift from it.
Earthquake time!! This actually turned out
to be a serious mistake and ended up
being the final blow, at least for them.
So, not to be outdone, the 1458 Flt, CAP
decided to play the same game. One
morning when no one was expecting it
and some were even still in bed, two F3
Tornado’s took off for their daily Air Patrol.
It was normal practice to fly over the airfield
once airborne as a safety observation.
This particular morning was anything
but safe. The two fighter took a good run
up at the airfield with full afterburner stayed
very low, flew above 1312 crew room
and went vertical. The ensuing shockwave
from the Jets engines nye on destroyed
the crew room. After this, the Station
Commander called both bosses into the
office for a meeting without tea and biscuits
and politely explained the error of
their ways. I wish I was a fly on the wall of
that meeting!!
Special Brew (58-Pattern)
Just remembered some naughtyness the
lads did back in the late 80's. I remember
getting a phone call from the Guardroom
SNCO that there was a debt collecter serving
papers on our Sqn. I quickly drove
over and I think it was the Britannia Music
Club but the lads had used our base
address and postcode and filled in orders
for
Christian Name: TheSqn
Surname: Kettle
Christian Name: Hugh
Surname: Jardon
Etc
Our Sqn had ordered nearly £400Stg
worth of Music & Videos !!
It was hard not to laugh as the heaviliy tattooed
debt collector who was a nasty
piece of work wanted to come onto the
base and speak to the Sqn Kettle and
Hugh Jardon et al. I sent him packing and
told him if a mail order company were stupid
enough to send CDs & Videos on credit
to a kettle then they should write it of as
Bad & Doubtful Debt and not be stupid
enough to outsource the debt and he was
stupid expecting a kettle to pay up.
Despite my 'bollocking' of the Sqn with a
glint in my eye and a big smile when I
asked that the Sqn Kettle & Hugh stopped
ordering music CD's. The lads continued.
The funny thing was about 2 weeks later
there I got Wet Wet Wet / Kylie & some
other CD in my pigeon hole. The lads had
ordered it to:
Christian Name: NiceKind
Surname: Woopert
I had to laugh and gave the CD's to the
Padre for the youth club. Thats the
humour that I miss.
Flying Wooperts (Bowser mong)
At RAF Bruggen in 1993 and an AAC fullscrew
pilot walked past two RAF officers.
As the fullscrew didn't throw up a salute
one of the crab officers got a bee in his
bonnet. "Corporal. Don't you salute RAF
officers in the Army?"
"No sir."
Asked with incredulity "Why not?"
Straight faced reply "Because we don't
have RAF officers in the Army,sir."
War poetry
Tired, torn, beneath the tree he laid on
grass
The breeze sweeping off his sweat
There was a calm he longed for long
His eyes were shut and he was taken aback
The calm was gone
Walking through the pool of blood
Trembling, shaking voices called for god
Father! screamed a voice at some distance
He knew the voice, his legs almost failed
that instance
Soaked in his mothers blood, red flowed his
tears
Far away a deer covered eyes of its fawn
This sorrow, this grief, man has called himself
upon
Helpless his hands longed to touch him
To feeble his legs could not even walk him
Whose sin was it paying off he ask
The king is also a man, no god to do his
task
The havoc he caused is being payed for
No children did he spared, nor will the
wrath do
Greed and ego, hunger for power
Driven by vices they called this hour
The war to satisfy their ego has come to
end
Lost lives of innocents will never mend
-Shamsir Alam
Battleground
They’ve eyes that are shining
They sparkle so bright
Below them a valley
The centre of all
The place they will battle
The place they will fall
Now what do they fight for
Just what is their prize
They are fighting to find out
What’s truth and what’s lies
You wont see this battle
Yet know when it starts
These battle so frequent
In all of our hearts
©karltearney
Eyes wide shut
My eyes wide open sitting in this place,
staring at nothing, staring into space.
I gently close my eyes knowing whats to
come, the flash the bang the sound of a
gun.
The things that flash by are from when i
was a forces member, hard to forget but
easy to remember. I open my eyes it’s
gone in a blink, no wonder sometimes i
turn to drink.
Its hard to dream of family and friends, i
don’t know when these nightmares will
end. My eyes have been shut for such a
long time, i hope not to need the booze,
brandy or wine
I want them to be open and let them be
mine, to turn off the dark and turn on the
sunshine
Friends
We all need them, we all need someone
to lean on, someone to share our problems
with, someone to standby us,
someone who we can enjoy life with,
and in return we do the same for them.
As we walk through life, friends do come
and go, we, or they, move on, we may
fall out with them or we may lose them
altogether. But regardless which, we
never forget them. I fell out with a friend
last year over a very silly argument. We
both had our egos beaten a little and became
very stubborn in admitting blame.
As time has gone on it has become
harder and harder for us to get back in
contact with each other and both of our
lives have now moved into different directions.
I look back on the fun times
that we shared and all of the good that
we achieved together and so miss them.
I hope so much that we will rebuild that
friendship soon. It was worth so much.
My big lesson out of this was the question
of fault. Our row was over something
very trivial that lead to hurtful
words being exchanged between us
both. So who was at fault? We both
were, is the short answer. Not for the
reasons that we argued about but for the
fact that we allowed something so precious
to fall apart over something we
shouldn't have argued over. Was it worth
all of this time without his friendship? absolutely
not. Most of the reflections I
have written can all be used here but
two of them stick out a mile for me.
Judgement and Forgiveness. I judged
my friend wrongly in quite a few ways
and in that alone I let him down. Although
I thought I was right at the time I
can see the enemy was fuelling my
pride.
Is there someone in your life that was
once very special who you now won't
speak to. Take a look at the reasons why
you were friends and ask yourself was
your friend purely at fault and were you
in a position to judge them. Then ask
yourself is a reconciliation possible. I do
hope so or why do so many talk of forgiveness.
Also consider this passage
from 1 Corinthians 13: "If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have
not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as
to remove mountains, but have not love,
I am nothing. If I give away all I have,
and if I deliver up my body to be burned,
but have not love, I gain nothing."
Love your friends. To lose them is a sin.
The Battleground ready
It shrinks and it grows
The smart lines of soldiers
They stand in their rows
Both Armies look equal
With one dressed in red
They’ve eyes that are distant
They stare as if dead
On the opposite ridgeline
They dress all in white
www.sandbagtimes.co.uk Page 6