Bloody Sunday

[jones20]

Today at 11:30 N.I. Prosecutors will decide if any charges will be brought against members of the paras worrying time for them

[jones20]

So those b******s have now got a scapegoat hope the army are going to defend him a travesty of justice

[welchboy]

So those b******s have now got a scapegoat hope the army are going to defend him a travesty of justice

Quite agree, my other concern would be where the trial is to be held and the make up of the jury.

[welchboy]

Just finished reading an article on this (Guardian), the Public Prosecution Service of N.I., have stated that they now intend to consider charges of others relating to allegations of perjury during the investigations. If we cannot get you one way we will get you by another.
Defence Secretary stated that the MOD will fund all legal costs and provide support for any service personnel charged.

[Keith Jones 989]

Only way to stop this is for every single member of the British Army to give notice to resign.

(40 or so years ago the Chairman of the BMA went to a meeting with the Health Secretary over a GP contract change the doctors couldn’t go along with. He took with him boxes of resignation letters from the 15000 or so GP members of the BMA at that time. When he was told what was in the boxes the Health Secretary shut down the meeting and the contract change was never mentioned again.)

[welchboy]

Another way would be or all members of our 3 services regardless of rank to demand from Government of the day, " Letters of Comfort".

It worked for both IRA., members and those of the political wing, including Gerry Adams and the late Martin McGuiness, who were both involved in the planning and execution of " Bloody Sunday ", being senior members of he IRA Council, McGuiness at the time was if I remember correctly was the Quarter Master and Commander of the Derry Brigade.

[margrit]

message to the British Government from an ordinary veteran soldier.
When I served in the Brigade of Guards from 1968 to 1973. I saw terrible atrocities during the four tours I did in my service in Northern Ireland on Operation Banner. Whilst in the province I witnessed the aftermath of IRA execution squads, tar and feathering’s, knee capping's. I spent months, day in, day out, patrolling bandit area's not knowing what was waiting for me around every corner or from a window down the street. I witnessed men, women and children being blown to pieces just because they were deemed by the IRA, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, an enemy of the cause or of Ireland. I was involved in the big gun battle with the IRA at Flax Street Mill/Divis Flats, Belfast. I’ve been shot at, blown up, spat at, bricks thrown at me, petrol bombed and I also lost goods friends.
In 1972 I was at the Oxford Street Bus Depot bomb when it exploded. There but for the grace of the heavy brick wall of the bus depot, I wouldn't be here today, as not one minutes before it exploded I was standing right next to the car bomb. In the aftermath, I had to picked up the remains of two really good friends who were blown to smithereens by the IRA on that 'Bloody Friday.' The only way I could recognise one of them was from his radio, as it was only he and I who carried radio’s and I could see the wires embedded and sticking out of his chest. His face was devoid of all recognition as a human being, let alone a friend. I, with others, picked him up to put him on a stretcher and his innards fell out of his back. I remember, as a young twenty three year old man, witnessing a Fireman using a bucket and shovel to clean his innards up off the road. The other friend killed in the same bomb was our young RCT driver, he literally had his head blown off. He was just eighteen years of age, it was his nineteenth birthday the following day. Believe me, these nightmares do not leave you; ever.
My last act in the province was also in 1972, when I myself was wounded whilst on patrol in the Markets area of Belfast. One day it was a Friday, the next it was Sunday and I was in the Military Wing of Musgrave Hospital, Belfast. When almost recovered I was returned to B.F.P.O. Germany to be confronted by my young wife as to why I didn't duck! Remember Musgrave Hospital? The very IRA you pardoned, bombed it in 1991 killing two soldiers. They bombed a 'hospital' for Gods sake, what sort of people have you pardoned? Even the Nazi's didn't deliberately bomb hospitals during WWII. I, with thousands of other’s you sent to the ‘war’ went through hell at times. My trauma counselling at the time and ever since consisted of. "Are you okay mate?" I, like all the others who suffered, just picked myself up and got on with it, because that's what we did back then, we got on with it. I served and suffered for my Queen and Country but I was still proud to do so and I still am. Well for my Queen and my Country anyway, but not for my Government. We were sent to ‘war’ because of politics and sick idealism. I was fortunate, unlike some of my brother’s in arms, I didn't lose a limb or had any lasting physical disabled just a scar from a head wound and the scar within as well. But here, 50 year on, I still suffer nightmares at times but I, as my generation do, we just get on with it. With no help I might add, from you, my duly elected caring Government. We could have won that ‘war’ if you had let us, but you tied our hands behind our back’s because you, as Politician's, were frightened of criticism because that’s all you had to face, critacism not bullets.
All British Government's of their day, refused to call it a war because it held different political and legal implications, than if a war had been declared. Because of this failure to class it as a war we, the British soldier, had to play by different rules than that we were trained for in total warfare. For a start, even although fired upon first, we had to shout a warning to the aggressor before returning fire. You even issued us with a speech on a card for us to read and shout to our enemy first. I never knew one soldier who had time to shout a warning when being fired upon first, it was kill or be killed. This is one of the many things YOUR legal teams and prosecutors who, and lets face it, their only purpose is not for justice but to see how much money they can make out of the process. You have them investigating old soldiers now in our 70’s for such incomprehensible things such as. “Did you shout a warning before you opened fire?” The IRA did not apply these same rule when they opening fire, they didn’t have too, they were lawless.. If a member of the IRA was arrested he/she had to be treated under the law as if he were just a normal criminal and they had ALL the privileges when arrested as if he were just a shoplifter, free lawler’s, legal advice, privileges etc. The IRA on the other hand, when they kidnapped a British Soldier, they were ALL brutally executed after being torture and violent beaten beforehand. Not ONE British Soldier taken alive by the IRA was returned alive, if returned at all. It was not only British Soldiers that faced this fate, but all those taken by The IRA. Remember ‘The Missing?’ The IRA did not take prisoners. If you had classed it as a war, some IRA members could have been tried under the Geneva Convention for being war criminals and subsequently executed. Remember that.
Now, in 2018, what makes this harder to deal with is we have a spineless Government, who not only gave these murdering IRA terrorist thugs a full pardon, we are now unable to prosecute the same murderers because they got a 'letter of pardon' signed by you, OUR Government. So no matter what evidence is gleaned from the past, now or the future, they can never be prosecuted for their war crimes. But you, this same Government, now deem it necessary to start investigations into the very soldiers, that you sent to 'war' for 'war crimes' on the very IRA murderers and their supporters that you pardoned, just because they say we committed offences and because, ‘THEY’ want their day of ‘justice’. What do the IRA know about justice? This whole mockery of so called justice is a disgrace and you should hang your heads in shame for allowing it. It is time for the Prime Minister of this Country that WE served, to put an end to this witch-hunt and also pardon ALL British soldiers from any prosecution just like you did for the IRA. The consequences of failing to do so, will be dire, not only for the soldiers accused but for the sitting Government of the day. I, and the thousands of other British veterans who served in Operation Banner want OUR 'letter of pardon' also.
Peter D Bruffell
(Ex. L/Sgt Welsh Guards)
1968 -1973

[welchboy]

An excellent post.

[Radar]

I read this with a tear in my eye. The author captures what many of think but are unable to verbalise. I consider myself lucky I only did 2 tours of the province but as an 18yr old on my first tour was horrified by what the IRA did to innocents in the name of their “cause”.

[jones20]

So a convicted IRA bomber has given four names of people he alleged committed the Birmingham pub bombings so are we going to see these people arrested and questioned or will it be one rule for us and another rule for them we’ll wait and see