A couple of years ago I saw an American “fly-on-the-wall” documentary series about life on a US aircraft carrier. This was after a US plane attacked a Canadian live-fire training exercise in Afghanistan and killed four of the men taking part. If the incident had happened a week earlier, there would have been five dead and I would have been the fifth man. I was horrified to learn that the pilot involved Maj. “Psycho” Schmidt had placed his 500 lb bomb exactly where I would have been standing if I’d been doing a newspaper story on the exercise – next to the anti-tank rocket launcher and the machine-gunners. I’d stood in that very spot while covering a daylight live-fire exercise and would have taken the same vantage point if I’d attended the night-time version. Luckily for me, the exercise was conducted a few days after I flew back to Canada.
But back to the documentary. The planes from the aircraft carrier were flying in support of US troops fighting in Iraq. The pilots’ frustration at never being called in to bomb or strafe anyone during their entire deployment was obvious. They wanted to do what millions of dollars had been spent training them to do. I wonder if “Psycho” suffered from the same frustration. I suspect he did. He and his supposed patrol commander were flying a similar mission to the pilots from the aircraft carrier – only over Afghanistan. I say “supposed commander” because the other pilot proved to have little control over “Psycho”. The pair spotted gunfire on the ground near the Kandahar airfield and the flash of what might have been an anti-aircraft missile being launched. The area near the base was often used for live-fire training exercises. The flash Psycho and his supposed commander saw was from the anti-tank rocket launcher being fired during the exercise. The men on ground didn’t even know Psycho and his buddy were high above them in the Afghan night sky until the bomb that ruined so many lives came whistling down. The two Air National Guard pilots were well above the range of machine gun fire or a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile. But for some reason they flew down towards what they thought was hostile fire. They radioed US control for information on who might be shooting – there was always a concern that the Bad Guys would infiltrate a night-fire exercise. Control had no immediate information about any exercise that night at the Tarnac Farm training area and advised the pilots to wait while a further check was done. But Psycho couldn’t wait. He killed four Canadian soldiers and maimed a couple more. Sadly, he was a very good pilot and an excellent aim. After the bomb was unleashed, one of the two pilots, I can’t remember which, said something along the lines of “I hope that was the right thing to do”.
Nope.
Psycho was no ordinary National Guard reservist. He was former regular and an instructor at the US Navy’s Top Gun training school. Both he and his buddy got what many regard as slaps on the wrist. Questions were raised about why US air control didn’t immediately identify the ground fire as coming from a Canadian exercise and the drugs issued to pilots to keep them alert during long standby patrols over Iraq and Afghanistan. Embarrassing questions which some people perhaps didn’t want answered or raised at a court-martial. Some plea bargaining was done. Psycho, probably on the advice of his lawyers, wouldn’t speak to the Canadian media. But his mother would. When, as a reporter on the Edmonton Sun, I asked her if her son had the slightest sliver, scintilla, of doubt about whether he should have dropped that bomb, she hung up on me. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But apples seldom blow people to Kingdom Come.

 I’ve been mulling over the thought that maybe it takes a brave man to admit he’s scared. I think anyone in their right mind gets afraid once in a while. Someone remarked long ago that “So-and-so doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’, poor chap can’t even spell it.” That may be a way of saying that there’s something wrong with someone who has never known fear.
So, if everyone gets scared, I guess it’s what they do about it that makes the difference. I think maybe it’s a cliche that men don’t fight for Queen and Country, or even for their regiment, but for the men in their section. That may be true sometimes, just as acts of courage are often done in the heat of the moment, sometimes in anger and rage, with little thought for the consequences. If you don’t think you’re going to die, are you really brave? But I think in many more cases it’s fear of being thought a coward by the rest of the section that makes someone stick things out and not take to their heels. No-one wants to be the first to break in a group in which a lot of time and effort has been invested in trying to earn the respect of the others. Often continuing to risk death seems a better option than running, or, as I’ve seen a couple times, rolling up into a ball and whimpering.
There’s a guy I know that I’ve got a lot of time for. He was in the Special Forces and saw a lot of action. Then he lost his bottle. He couldn’t go on and he transferred to the Military Police. Not the safest job in the Army but safer than what he’d been doing. Only the blow-hards, the guys who talk tough but never seem to be there when the excrement hits the rotating blade, failed to respect his decision. There were times in which I wish I had his courage, the courage to say “Enough, no more”.

When I was a kid in Scotland we had a playground game at school called “Best Man Falls”. We basically practised dying for The Queen: for all I know, some of my little classmates grew up to do just that. The game consisted of choosing how you wanted to die- machine-gun, hand-grenade, throwing-knife, bazooka, etc - and then running at an opponent who dealt out the requested death. The person who best simulated being blown up or torn to pieces was the winner.

The Scots are immensely proud of their military history. The Scottish Soldier is a national icon. Soldiering is something we Scots believe we do better than most. But many, myself included until I decided to write this book, base this belief on a less than complete survey of history. If you take the Queen’s Shilling, you do the Queen’s business; as determined by the politicos.  Sometimes that business is distasteful, sometimes it’s more dangerous than it has to be, and sometimes your life is placed in the hands of people who, if brains were gunpowder, wouldn’t have enough to blow their own nose.

I came across something out there on the Internet which seemed to suggest that some people feel that Scottish Military Disasters is an anti-war book. Those who know me, know that I’m no pacifist. What the book is, or at least is supposed to be, is a wry but honest look at the Scottish military experience over the centuries. The book is first-and-foremost intended to be informative and a good read. But no book worth reading is completely lacking in some sort of message. I’d be pleased if it made people think hard about what they are asking when they send our young men and women out on the Queen’s business. Those who “died” in our Lanarkshire playground games of Best Man Falls got up again. The same can’t be said of the battlegrounds of Afghanistan or Iraq.

A couple of years back, when I was in Afghanistan to cover the first Presidential elections, I kept my eyes open for one of the famous Khyber Rifles. Legend has it that in the late 1800s the British Army scrapped its Martini Henry rifles, the ones the Brits use in the movie Zulu. . The rifles’ barrels were cut off before they were sold to a scrap metal dealer in India. The dealer sold the rifles to the Afghans and after bazaar craftsmen put new barrels on, the rifles they were good as new and were turned on their former owners. The story is that you can still buy these Martini Henrys in Kabul. I know a guy who thinks he's got one and I saw one for sale on Chicken Street there. But I think the rifles are made by the great-great-great-great grandsons of the craftsmen who rebuilt the original army surplus consignment. A close look at them reveals many of them are dated 1919 but have Queen Victoria’s royal cipher on them. The letters making up the makers’ name “Enfield” are often the wrong way around or upside down.

Actually, my visit to Chicken Street in the company of another journalist was quite funny because at the time of the first Presidential election nearly all the Europeans working for aid agencies in Kabul were out of the country or laying low. As we came around the corner, there was a well respected British television journalist, John Simpson, doing a stand-up to camera saying that Chicken Street was deserted. He didn't look happy when he realized we were standing behind him.

If you’re reading this, I’d like to thank you. Thanks for taking the time to look around the site and thanks for your interest.

I’d be interested in knowing what you think of the site and I’d welcome any suggestions you have for improving it. I’d also be interested in hearing from you if you’ve read the military disasters book and finding out what you thought of it.

For brief period the site included a live-chat feature which was supposed to allow a real-time dialogue between visitors. But it was abused by people trying to advertise what I took to be porn sites. I didn’t follow any of the links to find out where they led because I’m suspicious of porn sites. I keep thinking religious extremists will set up a porn site that destroys the computers of anyone who visits it.

A couple of months back I suggested turning this blog into a discussion forum. I’d hoped we could start a “what if” feature. The first “what if” was “what if the Jacobites hadn’t turned back at Derby in 1745”. That one attracted a single reply, which I posted in the hope of stimulating further discussion. It didn’t happen. Maybe visitors felt they were being asked to sing for their supper. I just thought it might be worth trying to provide a discussion forum for people who share an interest in history.

So, if anyone is interested in getting a forum going, please use the “Contact” section of this site to send in a “what if” and perhaps even set the ball rolling with their own view on the topic suggested. I’ll post the material and with luck that will avoid the abuse that led to the ‘live-chat” section having to be closed down.

I’ve never been sure about blogs anyway. I’d be really surprised if anyone was interested in the minutia of my daily slog to make enough money to pay the rent and put food on the table. I find myself toning down the content of my blog entries because I have to make a living and I can’t afford to piss more people off than I already have done. I’m fairly sure the US military blacklisted me because of the fuss I made about their aircrews killing British and Canadian troops in circumstances very far from being shrouded in the fog of war. The battlefield is a dangerous place and accidents will happen – but there are accidents and there are trigger-happy jet-jockeys who don’t care who they kill, as long as they get to kill someone. Mindful of an incident from the First Gulf War, I joked with some Canadian soldiers in Kanadahar about taking cover if they heard a jet overhead, as it could only belong to the US air force. A week later a US jet did fly over and four Canadian soldiers were blown to pieces by the bomb the pilot dropped. I might write more about that – and the pilot’s mother – in my next blog posting.

Once again, your feedback and suggestions would be really really welcome.