In A Very British Hero, Christina Schmid – the widow of army bomb disposal expert Oz Schmid – reveals how the Army is failing in its duty of care to this tiny elite band of soldiers who are at the very forefront of the war in Afghanistan.
In this specially-authored Panorama, she examines how Oz and his colleagues have been expected to work for months on end without a proper break defusing anything up to 10-15 Taliban devices a day in the harshest of conditions, because there simply aren’t enough of them.
And she uncovers the decisions taken early in the war that helped contribute to this shortfall as the number and impact of Taliban IEDs (explosive devices) has risen dramatically.
If the soldiers are scared or intimidated into work over-load, then they are not right for the job. The U.S military has a large personnel base to draw from, they should not be having this problem. There are plenty of soldiers that want the chance to keep their fellow soldiers out of harms way. They should boot the complainers out, and staff the unit with real men.
No wonder the British troops think the Americans are gung-ho and cause as much trouble as they quell. The British soldier is far more respected than the American. Sorry for you to hear that.
This is a really cool post. Italia
It is a terrible shame that these people trained in this dangerous
job are intimidated into work over load. I think it probably because
the job needs to have as much done as possible.,Plus the individuals own
desire to not let others down and to protect their own. I think these need a strong CO who can insist they stand down for a rest,despite
operational needs. Thus the CO with guts will probably get rocketed for not completeing jobs on time. This is where the higher ups must adjust their time table to accommodate the mine clearing people.It takes to long to train these people to a competent level to throw them away by being hasty.