[Basil Plumley]

And it's very good...

[jolly]

Tomorrow evening, 9 o clock, i believe

Looking forward to it myself

Steve

[breakersrevenge]

Fantastic, got great respect for Ross 'I'm hard' Kemp.
People take the p out of him, but I think people will look at him differently after this.

Respect to the guys out there.

Also I think the PQ is fantastic with the clips about future eps, I read somewhere that its the 1st HD equipment into battle zones!

[jolly]

Originally Posted by breakersrevenge

Also I think the PQ is fantastic with the clips about future eps, I read somewhere that its the 1st HD equipment into battle zones!

I agree, the picture was firstclass

Steve

[Basil Plumley]

For me personally, this was more about the quality of programme than the PQ - though both were excellent.

[jolly]

Originally Posted by Armoured Tiger

For me personally, this was more about the quality of programme than the PQ - though both were excellent.

I agree looking forward to next's weeks


Steve

[Gameracer]

Sky+ this, looking forward to watching it.

[jolly]

Originally Posted by Gameracer

Sky+ this, looking forward to watching it.

Me too and prison break straight after it

Steve

[jolly]

The picture quality was amazing last night and the program was non to shabby either

[Dirtschmooz]

Originally Posted by jolly

The picture quality was amazing last night and the program was non to shabby either

Have to agree with you guys. I have had my HD 42" sharp aquos for a year now, and the PQ on this program was exceptional. The best HD quality program that I've ever seen broadcast from the sky HD box. I wish more were as good as this.

regards......

[jolly]

If only all HD programs were of this quality

[breakersrevenge]

What a fantastic episode!!
my son an I was on the edge of our seats.

Best thing on the box for ages.

Watching it in HD on my Sony was awsome!!
My son even said it was almost as if we was there!!!

[bingham67]

Sure was amazing episode last night and PQ was superb.

Really a great insight into the bravery and courage our troops show in challenging environments certainly have upmost respect from me.

Jeez that RPG was well close going over Ross head and dont know if was bullet or mud but when they were ducking down could see bullet fly past camera.

Was sad to hear that soldier died in Viking from IED and all them other vehicles must of been so close to hitting it very scary. I dont know i wish there could be more protection on these things its seemed to rip very easy through it i read while ago that new armor was being tested always seems to be ages before hit frontline though.

[eric pisch]

was very good

suprised how much of a pussy he was thou

[SimonH]

Excellent PQ , brilliant. Amazing how some guy in the middle of the desert in extreme temps can produce that quality and yet Torchwood looks in places like it was filmed with a Cine 8 ..

[Basil Plumley]

Originally Posted by eric pisch

was very good

suprised how much of a pussy he was thou

Ever taken fire...?

[metalhead72]

Really enjoying it, Well done Ross !!

[SimonH]

Originally Posted by Armoured Tiger

Ever taken fire...?

I think people seem to forget RK is an actor of tuff guys, not a tuff guy. I'm pretty convinced most people would get their head well down and let off the odd expletive when you can hear the bullets passing inches from your head, me included.

[Decadence]

Fantastic TV...brave lads and lasses.

[jolly]

Back on tonight, l;ooking forward to it

[Dr Force]

This is excellent TV.

It really opens your eyes to what the chaps out there are doing.My perception was alot of distance fighting but you see this and your talking in meters.

Hats off to Ross Kemp for risking his life to bring this home so people can understand a little better.

[bluesilver]

Originally Posted by eric pisch

was very good

suprised how much of a pussy he was thou

Do you mind telling us all about the times that you have been underfire in Afghanistan (or anywhere else) and what you did that was better than how Ross coped?

[Sonic67]

I’ve been shot at several times.

Once briefly during the first night of fighting in the First Gulf War.

Fired on by a T-55 (crewed by Brits!) - Iraq again after the war had finished.

Shelled by mortars in Mostar. Also shelled regularly when in Bugojno.

Shot at by a .50 machine gun in Gorni Vakuf.

Shot at a few times by troops going to the front when at Redoubt camp again in Bosnia. Once in a Mexican stand off with some of the HOS as well.

Shot at twice in Iraq two years ago, also shelled about twenty times while in camp and found out after the event that we had drove past some IEDs.

I think that’s all of it. They are all separate incidents and really require a fair bit of detail on each. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes stupid, sometimes scary and some kind of combination of all of that. Usually your adrenalin is going and to a large extent your training kicks in and you are reacting with that.

It’s like if you are driving a car and the car skids and you control it automatically and then you look back at what you did and wonder how you did it all without thinking. One of the things about training is constant repetition over and over with a similar situation so you behave in a similar way in combat. A lot of things in training are geared to recreate war. For instance the targets you shoot at are soldier type targets. The targets could be a bullseye design but making it ‘human’ conditions you into shooting at those types of targets. That’s a simple level but it extends throughout training. Often in training you are put under stress so in a war situation it’s easier. There’s a saying ‘hard training easy war’.

Scariest thing is often letting your mates down. You don’t want to run off as you know you’d be letting them down. You also get to know your mates more than you might know your wife. Often you sleep near them, have breakfast with them, spend all day with them, drink with them and then sleep again. Day in day out for months. Also bear in mind that we have a professional army. People in the army are there because at some point they have quite fancied being in a war. In the same way if you asked someone why they would parachute out of a plane they have gone through it in their heads and decided they wanted to do it.

To take one of them here’s the .50 cal incident. Pull up a sandbag and swing the lamp. I had tagged along with a convoy escort which was moving heavy plant from one place to another.

We arrived at Gorni Vakuf and it was early on in the Bosnian war. The camp we had arrived at had been shelled and shot at several times. My mate and I took a few ‘happy snaps’ while the others went into a building further down the street. While we were looking round and taking pictures a .50 cal machine gun opened up on us. The sound was like duf, duf, duf. Really heavy deep thuds. My mate and I legged it for the building the others had gone into. This was the time we had recently had the SA80 rifle and the magazine catch was on the left hand side but without the later mod of the guard around the release catch. As my mate ran his magazine release catch hit his hip and the magazine fell out. He stopped, scooped it up and we ran on.

We reached the building and sheltered in the entrance. As his mag had fell off we each took the magazines off and looked at the top round. The rounds are staggered up through the magazine and my top round was on a different side of the mag to his. One of his rounds must have come out when the magazine came off.

Two choices either a. go back and look for it. b. Write out a statement later explaining how we managed to lose one.

We had a quick chat and decided we didn’t fancy paperwork so we both ran back out and down the street. We got back to where the mag had fell off and scrabbled round in the gutter. I was thinking, “This is where I get shot now. How stupid is this?”

Anyway my mate suddenly stood up holding the round in triumph. I had a quick look and said, “well done” and we both legged it back again. Amazingly though we didn’t get shot at again. We got back into the doorway and my mate cleaned the round off and put it in back in the mag. I went through into the building and found my mate Ned inside. I said “they’ve just been shooting at us out there.” He said, “It happens all the time. Once I tried to go for a shower (the shower block was outside the building) and they were shooting down the street so I stood there with a towel wrapped round me and thought Nah.”

I don’t normally tell my civvy mates stuff like that as either they don’t understand or it sounds like boasting or something.

[Basil Plumley]

I've had a few incidents - mostly in Northern Ireland and Kosovo. I'd rather forget about them though...the worst one happened in Zaire though when my section was FGA'd (Fired on by aircraft - in this case, MIG's) in the British Embassy in Kinshasa.
Decided then enough was enough really...didn't want my three kids growing up without a father. But still somehow managed to push out another nine years!!

I did 22 years in the Infantry - I don't regret a single minute. I did a lot of the cold war in Germany (was in Minden when the wall came down). In my time, after that, we didn't have a job really. The IRA barely came out for a fight and Bosnia and Kosovo were peace keeping jobs where contact with the enemy was frowned upon and you only engaged to save YOUR own life - or your muckers. Nobody else seemed to matter...

I spent the whole of the first Gulf war running ranges in Sennelager for Battle casualty Replacements. When my time came to go, the C-130 I was on taxi's down the runway at Guttersloh (I think...?), stopped before it took and turned round. The war had finished.

I don't envy these guys one bit. I now work at the MOD rehabilation centre at Headley Court. I see 1 dozen 19 or 20 year olds coming through a year with limbs missing. Did my bit - or so I thought...

[bluesilver]

bl**dy hell... you'd think the government would want you lot armed up and with enough protection on to stop a tank shell!

I sure as hell would pay more taxes to make sure anyone in those situations was PROPERLY and fully kitted out and anyone who doesn't, well, I'd like to see them dumped in some warzone with your kit and told to get on with it..

And when you think that half the lot out there are on pittance compared to a footballer.
It's so ridiculous that it defies all logic or belief. A soldier in some hell hole getting shot at all day earns less than a footballer who only has to kick a ball about a bit.

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by bluesilver

I sure as hell would pay more taxes to make sure anyone in those situations was PROPERLY and fully kitted out and anyone who doesn't, well, I'd like to see them dumped in some warzone with your kit and told to get on with it..

Des Brown (defence secretary who looks like Swiss Toni) came out and visited us when I was in Iraq. He couldn't join us for a patrol as it was too dangerous to put him in a Snatch Land Rover. Hmm. Isn't that the point?

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by Armoured Tiger

I now work at the MOD rehabilation centre at Headley Court. I see 1 dozen 19 or 20 year olds coming through a year with limbs missing.

My mate has been there a few times.

Private Luke Cole. He was shot twice.

Original incident as on the BBC news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6986429.stm

Then as reported in The Sun and Luke gets a mention.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...icle393962.ece

Then the local paper puts him on the front page.

http://www.expressandstar.com/2007/1...es-war-horror/

If you see him there tell him Sonic says hi.

[Dr Force]

big respect to you guys who have seen combat.

I know you talk about trainning and such but it still takes alot of balls to do what you have all done.

Thanks for your efforts

[Basil Plumley]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

Private Luke Cole. He was shot twice.

That's unlucky...you guys had a rough time out there IIRC.
My ex Battalion was on Telic 3 (where Beharry got his VC) - but I didn't go as i was on my resetlement...we've still got guys coming through now from that tour, three years on...

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by Armoured Tiger

That's unlucky...you guys had a rough time out there IIRC.
My ex Battalion was on Telic 3 (where Beharry got his VC) - but I didn't go as i was on my resetlement...we've still got guys coming through now from that tour, three years on...

I was on Op Telic 7 though I know a few who were on Op Telic 3. Luke went to Afghanistan attached to another unit. I might be going there next year if I can get on it. I fancy one more tour before I quit.

I've got some more stuff on this computer about Bos. Some might find it interesting.

First time I went was probably the most dangerous place I’d ever been to anywhere. Every village was against every other village. Muslim houses would have their roofs set on fire to make the houses uninhabitable to force them out.

Someone I knew had to eventually have his legs amputated when the block he was in was fired at by a tank in Zepce. The Government wouldn’t pay out as they did not consider the place to be a conflict.

At Bugoyno the town was shelled that often I became numbed to it. It was funny to see visitors to the camp though as they’d be ducking when a shell went off and we’d be standing around watching. Sometimes we'd spend the night in a shelter. You are supposed to sit away from the walls of the shelter with your mouth open. Away from the wall in case it gets hit and your mouth open to help the pressure equalise inside you and outside. I think we all just used to fall asleep in there leaning against the wall.

One of the faction war lords ‘gimmicks’ was that he liked to torture people with a chainsaw. It was his ‘thing’.

Another war lord used to drive round Sarajevo with a row of babies heads on the front of his jeep. That was his ‘gimmick.’ There was so much horror that you had to do something special to stand out. In Sarajevo the private armies used to do their own protection rackets. They’d demand money from a business to pay for their own little force and in return they’d give you ‘protection.’ One business wouldn’t pay so they mortared it. The money used to go on slivovich and drugs. These armies were all off their face like the Americans in Vietnam.

On my first tour I was in Redoubt camp on Route Triangle. It was a camp up in the mountains. Either side of the mountains was a checkpoint run by the HVO. A Bosnian army faction. A coach load of Muslim women and children trying to flee Bosnia and get to Croatia passed through one checkpoint but was stopped at the second. I imagine the first checkpoint had radioed through to the second. The coach came back and stopped outside our camp. It didn’t want to go back to be ‘cleansed’ and couldn’t go on. We couldn’t do anything for them as we didn’t have the water and food and we weren’t allowed to get involved in ‘their’ war as we’d be taking sides when we were supposed to be neutral. To some extent the Muslims resented us for this. We had weapons and vehicles but wouldn’t get involved. Anyway soon after the HOS turned up. These were a right wing faction who liked ethnic cleansing and liked to wear a black uniform. They were going to gun them down outside our camp. We weren’t allowed to get involved but I don’t think anyone was going to see this just happen. Under our rules of engagement we were allowed to fire if we were fired upon so we ran out into a loose gaggle in front of the coach.

At the time I was in my room when I heard the shout so I was in civvys and I’d only grabbed my LSW and a magazine. I wasn’t even really sure what was going on but I’d caught on quick.

Anyway I was stood on the far side of the road and I aimed on a guy more or less opposite me and then decided who I was going to have next. I remember thinking, after that I’m not sure what to do next. That would depend on me still being alive I guess.

It was an amazing thing. On this dirt track road there were about three or four jeeps and this HOS faction in black trousers, brown belts and black long sleeved shirts. They were armed with rifles and AK’s. We were in a mixture of uniforms and civvys. Behind us was these Muslim civvys absolutely terrified. I was stood to the left with these civvy’s behind me. To my right was our camp entrance. In front of me was these troops who were going to just kill in cold blood. Now I think of it it would all have been just one more side show in a whole lot of war but you couldn’t not be there. You can’t go round killing women and kids. Amongst the HOS their leader was stood in the middle and a little forward of his troops and I think about three of our lot were aimed on him. If he or one of his guys fired I guess he would have been dead before he hit the ground.

This ‘Mexican stand off’ lasted for maybe fifteen seconds until their leader, laughed, rested his AK onto his shoulder and then called his blokes off. They got onto their jeeps and turned and left. We watched them go and then went over to the civvys at the coach. They’d now gone from resenting us to being forever in our debt I guess. A couple of hours later two Warriors and a Scimitar turned up to escort them back to where they’d come from.

Once I was helping dig a culvert when I saw a Muslim woman with her two kids who’d been turfed out of her house. They’d been given five minutes to leave as the roof was going to be burnt off her house. She’d packed what she could in some shopping bags. She was stood by the road wandering where to go.

At one camp a ‘local’ used to like to take pot shots at the guys in the camp. The camp commander reckoned he knew who was doing it so he parked a CVRT Scimitar on the guys front lawn with the 30mm cannon pointing about two foot from the guys living room window. Very simple. You fire, the Scimitar fires. The pot shots stopped.

A sniper liked to fire at people from another village from a house on a hill. The population was mainly Muslim and the sniper was Serb. The blokes from the village raided the house and after a short firefight were in. To punish the sniper they broke every bone in the guy’s arms and legs several times. They then left him for 24 hours. The following night they came back and killed him. His body was so shattered he couldn’t crawl away. He got to spend 24 hours of pain on this Earth before they killed him.

Once it was thought I was going into Gorazde. I was sat in my room and Mirv (Mirv was a muslim I worked with. He worked at our camp in Bugoyno before the war started. Then it was a factory.) came in with the translator. This was odd as he usually spoke in his dodgy English to me. I could also chat to him in a little of my dodgy Bosnian or in German which we could both partly speak. I wondered what they both wanted and put my book down. He started talking in Bosnian and the translator started translating. He was saying how upset he was, how much he liked me, how sometimes all the fighting got him down and he was a little grumpy. Stuff like that. He was getting tears roll down his face and then I started filling up and I had to call a halt to it as I wasn’t going to have us all blubbing. As it turned out The Serbs weren’t going to let any more convoys through. I got half way there halted for a couple of days then had to come back.

Eventually NATO took over. Mirv came to see me and started throwing his arms around me, kissing me and pumping my hand. I had no idea what was going on. I just thought we must have made him happy then. NATO jets had started bombing the Serbs that morning. When he got excited he dropped into his native language and I couldn’t understand him.

We used to go to Croatia to get some R&R. We were walking round the market area when we saw an English couple. They were there on holiday. I couldn’t believe it just up the road, there in Europe, was a full-scale civil war. Here in Croatia there was a couple on holiday.

Most of Croatia still didn’t work. There was no regular electricity supply. We went to a restaurant. My mate ordered tomato salad for a starter. What he got was sliced tomato. Nothing else. No cheese, no lettuce nothing. Just a small plate of tomatoes sliced up. You would order something off the menu and half the time you’d be told, “steaks good” “how about the lamb?” “Steaks good” After a while you realise that the menu was bare except for steak. Once I ordered Scampi. One of the guys who’d been to the place before said, “you do know it comes with eyes on don’t you?” I had always seen scampi served as a small round ball so I imagined this small yellow ball turning up with some ‘stick on’ eyes. To me honest I will eat anything except for eggs and black pudding so I didn’t care if the thing was walking round on the plate. It wasn’t too bad actually.

After we left the BBC gave us a VHS video of news footage etc set to music. I showed it Mrs Sonic and she burst into tears at all the stuff in it. Footage of dead kids and babies and little coffins being buried, set to Chris Rea’s ‘Tell Me There's a Heaven’. RPG’s being fired to Seals ‘Crazy’. That sort of thing.