"Please don't shoot me I'm a multiculturalist, honest guv"by johnofgwent
Full Story here.
Those who know me may have heard me repeat an anecdote I first heard from a work colleague well over fifteen years ago. It concerns his father's rather unique role in the second world war. The accuracy of the end of his tale was, validated in my mind by by another tale two of my great uncles - one a desert rat, the other a conscientious objector who agreed to go out into the same desert with a stretcher and a medical bag - told me years earlier, of an Avro Hart landing at their desert base with a cargo of ice cream acquired from Cairo.
But the story starts with the landings of our boys in the deserts south of the mediterranean and the unfortunate end to a St John's ambulance convoy. It seems a convoy of medical vehicles decked out with the Cross of The Order Of St John was sent out across the badlands from the beach-head areas to supply field hospitals nearer the front line, and they got badly shot up by locals. Locals who had for centuries told in their oral tradition of men who came and slaughtered their ancestors and their womenfolk. Men who carried upon their armour the emblem of the Cross of St John.
So when the descendants of these locals found a convoy of vehicles decked out with the same symbol, it was a case of "Eh-Up Lads The Buggers Are Back" and "Vengeance Is A Dish Best Served Cold" says Allah's man on the ground in charge now. And the rest, as they say, is a right ripping yarn.
Whether the first part of that tale is the truth, or about as factual as Dick Whittington's Streets Of London, I do not know. But I find myself less than impressed with today's multicultural answer to make sure it never happens again.
It seems we now have a new symbol for the famously neutral body formed to aid those who are not, or are no longer, active combatants in a war zone.
For the RED CROSS and RED CRESCENT have been deemed to be politically sensitive and therefore the "Red Crystal" will be used in their place.
Bollocks. UTTER Bollocks. For a start it looks JUST LIKE the "good tone" symbol seen on the HUD of every yankee fighter from "Toko-Ri" to "Top Gun". And for another thing, I still remember my great uncle who took a stretcher and medical bag into that war because he refused to take a rifle telling me the experience proved to him that troops on both sides looked very much the same after bullets and shrapnel turned you inside out.
In my book, we do not need this. For if the twin symbols of the Red Cross and Red Crescent are indeed to be spat upon by those whom the organisations seek to help, then let them die in agony.
But the story starts with the landings of our boys in the deserts south of the mediterranean and the unfortunate end to a St John's ambulance convoy. It seems a convoy of medical vehicles decked out with the Cross of The Order Of St John was sent out across the badlands from the beach-head areas to supply field hospitals nearer the front line, and they got badly shot up by locals. Locals who had for centuries told in their oral tradition of men who came and slaughtered their ancestors and their womenfolk. Men who carried upon their armour the emblem of the Cross of St John.
So when the descendants of these locals found a convoy of vehicles decked out with the same symbol, it was a case of "Eh-Up Lads The Buggers Are Back" and "Vengeance Is A Dish Best Served Cold" says Allah's man on the ground in charge now. And the rest, as they say, is a right ripping yarn.
Whether the first part of that tale is the truth, or about as factual as Dick Whittington's Streets Of London, I do not know. But I find myself less than impressed with today's multicultural answer to make sure it never happens again.
It seems we now have a new symbol for the famously neutral body formed to aid those who are not, or are no longer, active combatants in a war zone.
For the RED CROSS and RED CRESCENT have been deemed to be politically sensitive and therefore the "Red Crystal" will be used in their place.
Bollocks. UTTER Bollocks. For a start it looks JUST LIKE the "good tone" symbol seen on the HUD of every yankee fighter from "Toko-Ri" to "Top Gun". And for another thing, I still remember my great uncle who took a stretcher and medical bag into that war because he refused to take a rifle telling me the experience proved to him that troops on both sides looked very much the same after bullets and shrapnel turned you inside out.
In my book, we do not need this. For if the twin symbols of the Red Cross and Red Crescent are indeed to be spat upon by those whom the organisations seek to help, then let them die in agony.