From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Morale is....hanging in there coz of the sheer bloody mindedness of the UK
PBI but none the less:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5245238.stm

""When I joined up 10 years ago," he said, "people
rarely knew anyone who had died in action. Now, pretty much everyone you
speak to knows someone who's been killed here or in Iraq.""

"I spoke to a medic about how she was getting on.

"Eight weeks to go before R and R (rest and recuperation)," she said.

I smiled and added that most troops I spoke to knew exactly the number of
days they had left on their tour.

"Fifty-seven" she quickly replied, and went on to explain that
new technology was helping them keep track.

Every day when they log on to their computers, an updated bar chart shows
how much money they have made so far, and a pie chart fills in another
slice of their little circle showing how many days, hours and minutes they
have left in the country.

It made me think of the play Journey's End, about British troops in the
trenches during World War I.

One of the characters, Trotter, obsessively fills in his little circles
every day with a pen, counting down to the end of his war.

And I am not the only one harking back to World War I.

In an off-the-cuff remark, one commander said: "At least back then
troops were rotated out from the front line every 12 days."

"In one of Helmand's districts," he continues - the scene of some
of the heaviest attacks - "the Gurkhas were only relieved after more
than three weeks of intensive fighting."

At one stage, he tells me, they had to use hand grenades to fight off the
Taleban. And hand grenades are only effective up to 30 metres. "

Nice to see even the lasses adopt the PBI mentality:

"I spoke to another soldier in Camp Bastion and asked her why she
thought the British forces are here.

"I don't know" she said. "Something about drugs I think...
but it seems more like we're here to be shot at by the Taleban."
"

Could have been said in any part of the Empire 100 years ago.....

Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5