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I hope the production stimulates a debate about the merits of the operational/political decision taken to send the detachment to an isolated/untenable position.........One has to wonder if any lessons were learned from Jado given the loss of Ptes Doherty & Joyce in 1981 when they were placed in an isolated and unsupported position......
similar shortcomings were found with EUFOR Chad/CAR......similar concerns have been voiced about UNDOF......this forum has a plethora of posts about Op Pontus / EUNAVFOR MED near Libian waters........
our political masters still percivere with the illusion that Irish troops overseas:
1. are going to be welcomed by all encountered because we are Irish / neutral
2. will never have to actually engage an enemy because we are "peacekeepers"
and consequently are blissfully as ignorant as those political masters that sent the first troops to Congo.
lessons learned???
An army is power. Its entire purpose is to coerce others. This power can not be used carelessly or recklessly. This power can do great harm. We have seen more suffering than any man should ever see, and if there is going to be an end to it, it must be an end that justifies the cost.Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
The problem as I see it lies with the vocal loony left in the dail, who equate anything of a military nature as pandering to the needs of the USA, NATO and all the other nasty warmongers. Sure if we could just convince them to stop using guns then we wouldn't need them at all at all.
Unfortunately the government of the day listens to these freaks, whose collective opinions on the global security situation is about as researched as the average sunday morning comment on journal.ie.
For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.
Just something I noticed with the screenshots released of this Jabotville film. Jamie Dornan plays Commandant Pat Quinlin and yet in the picture in the link below he's wearing a brassard with a 3 star private rank.
Might be explained in the film, but hope it is not one of those films that makes silly mistakes that could be easily picked up by anyone with a basic military knowledge.
There is something in the back of that disaster area I call my mind about officers dumping rank badges to confuse snipers, I know ; standard practice now, but I don't think it was then....
"We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey"
Radio transmission, siege of Jadotville DR Congo. September 1961.
Illegitimi non carborundum
My grandfather served until 1962 and went right thru the war period and said that the end of WW2 saw the immediate and wholesale shrinking of the Army, NS and AC and wartime purchases were dumped or allowed to run into the ground. Spares became difficult or downright impossible to get, funds were perpetually tight, recruitment was token, retention of personnel difficult and morale collapsed. Facilities such as Married Quarters were in seriously bad order. It wasn't until the Sixties that money began to reach the DF again, but evidently not soon enough for the first Congo airlifts. My granddad's opinion was that it took the retirement or death of the wartime leadership, both military and govt and civil service, to get things moving again. He also said that there were many opportunities to acquire good equipment, postwar, especially US made equipment, but it was not taken up.
Why would he have both his officer rank marking and private badge on at the same time?
Oh well thats it then!, if they can't get the small things right, why bother at all.......and its not even a once off mistake.. seen it in a couple of stills!!!
Covid 19 is not over ....it's still very real..Hand Hygiene, Social Distancing and Masks.. keep safe
There is something in the back of that disaster area I call my mind about officers dumping rank badges to confuse snipers, I know ; standard practice now, but I don't think it was then....
But here is a case of wearing both and not removing his officer insignia.
Oh well thats it then!, if they can't get the small things right, why bother at all.......and its not even a once off mistake.. seen it in a couple of stills!!!
THE SIEGE OF JADOTVILLE tells the true story of the 1961 siege of a 150-member Irish U.N. battalion under Commander Patrick Quinlan by 3,000 Congolese troops...
Trailer has dropped
To close with and kill the enemy in all weather conditions, night and day and over any terrain
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