My mother is Southern Irish and I was in the army when two soldiers were shot with uzi's in Munster, the town I was stationed in. Every day, we risked being blown up, or shot at and had to check for car bombs, as that was the weopon of choise for the IRA. It guilds me that they now expect an justice for the British soldiers bit are not prepared to accept it for their own. Let's not forget however, that most of their funding was from the USA, who conveniently forgot this fact, until they themselves got attacked, then declaring a war on terrorism(fairly hypocritically thinks). The past is the past and should be left there, but justice ( or lack of it), should go both ways.
Someone has to start the peace process, make the first gesture. This is what is happening. The IRA will either capitulate or stick their necks out far enough for us to take good aim...
In regards to the incident this thread refers to; try and watch a movie called Armadillo. It's about some Danish soldiers in an area my old unit had deployed to the tour before. There is a specific incident in the movie which has similar overtones to the marine's. There was an investigation, no punishment and the men did what they needed to to come home. I see these tales from a soldier's point of view and watching this film may help you to do so too. Another good film is Restrepo, a very good portrayal of both real fighting, and also how not to carry out hearts and minds ops. The officer in charge is a text book example of why we are still in Afghanistan in 2014 and why the battle didn't start to change until around 2010 when we stopped trying to fight everything and started trying to rebuild the nation. Also included in Restrepo is a very good example of how shock can affect people and the different ways people deal with witnessing violent death. My thanks go to the men in these two films who did not return home.
