May I suggest?? Are we at a stage now where we have to have everything checked for us, we can't be trusted to carry out any task unsupervised? Please remember this was SAS training, with adults who I imagine are experienced soldiers. It wasn't the local junior school on a ramble...
It was a selection excersize not training. They have a right to life and the mod have a duty of care to every emoloyee.
If it was the evasion part of the selection process, there is a 'strong possibility' they had to find their own water............You get sod all on 'evasion'............I shan't mention Mars bars...
Of course they have a right to life, but they weren't asked to die. They were given the knowledge and tools to complete a task to the best of their ability. There was no gun to their head making them continue. I also have a right to live, but that doesn't mean my throttle should be controlled by a third party in case I end up killing myself. Ask yourself, who is more likely to die? The soldier who firstly better manages his own admin and recognises a danger to his own life and finds a way to survive or a guy that doesn't maintain his own health, despite having the equipment and knowledge to do so? These are the potential elite of the British Army, being asked to operate away from assistance, under extreme pressures. They need to be able to make the right choices and maintain themselves without being told to.I am very sorry for the chaps that died and their families, but it is not the MODs fault.
Well said Tom, it a choice to carry on, as with many courses in the MOD they are designed to be hard, to put you under pressure because when you are wet,/hot tired physicality at the end of your endurance and far from help you need to look after yourself and your kit first. If you can't do that how can you expect to do your job?
If the MOD had a real duty of care to every employee, they wouldn't send them to places to be shot at and blown up. Being in the army is a pretty risky profession. Being in the SAS is even riskier. No one makes them apply to do it.
Applying the H&S rules of industry, offices, schools and such, to the business of war (and the preparation for it) is the height of absurdity. Have a word. When soldiers are working in the office, sleeping in the barracks, back home on leave, etc ... normal H&S rules apply to those activities. If they are training, undergoing fitness/selection exercises or, incredible as it may seem, risking their lives whilst under fire from the enemy, then a different set of rules applies. Are these difficult concepts?
If they supply them sub-standard, incorrect or missing kit for the tasks in hand, then yes. Soldiers shouldn't be left open for vulnerability, especially when there is a means of lowering the risk.
They were on the Brecon Beacons which is covered in water, and they took a lot of water with them. There is more water available at every checkpoint. I am struggling to see how they got it wrong?
The main points of the selection process are survival on little or no resources; evasion with little or no resources; orienteering with little or no resources; fitness and ability to do all....... ........candidates know what they are letting themselves in for; or at least should do..............it's not as though they are schoolkids or new recruits. Most of them have been in the forces for a few years in other regiments, so they have plenty of opportunity to research what they will be up against. Many even get the chance to do a yomp on the Beacons prior to becoming a candidate for selection....... I can't see the MOD are to blame for the incident and frankly, the H & S personnel should butt out or try it for themselves.......They are like lefty local authority jobsworths and should have nothing to do with the Armed Forces.
This has kind of swayed away from the meat of the thread anyway; it's not just army and SAS stuff that's getting diluted by the H&S virus, it's day to day life. This shit grows faster than Japanese knot weed.
I disagree. There's absolutely nothing wrong with ensuring we are all safe in our day to day work and private lives, what I object to is the lazy use of Health & Safety as an excuse by people who have no clue as to what they are talking about, like the girl in Costa who assured me it was "Health and Safety" that meant her shop only had full fat milk, not semi skimmed. Health and Safety legislation is there to mitigate risk, not to eliminate all risks. The HSE Website has some interesting articles busting myths.
