The Support Group

discus

Gentlemen and ladies, welcome to the first meeting of the support group, for those who don't get why there is a perception amongst the ill informed that the RAF Regiment are some sort of elite wing of the UK Armed Forces.

Hello, my name is Discus, and I just don't get it. Where the hell has it sprung up from?!

pablomakaveli

Guess i need to join then because i dont get it at all especially since these people have no link to the RAF regiment.

tac foley

Gentlemen - I've PM'd you both with my thoughts.

Best

tac

OS119

gentlemen, i'm no psychologist, but i believe i have the answer...

the RAF Regiment is, within the RAF, an elite* in terms of just bog standard weapons handling and infantry skills - the mover, radar tech, ATCer etc.. has no real need to be proficient in such, he needs to know how to defend himself in extremis, but its not something they practice very often or give much thought to: a couple of days a year ****ing about on the range with the war paint on and its time for tea and medals in the mess - the RAF Regiment bloke therefore walks about the station knowing he does/knows things no one else around him does...

he is then, to be fair to our crustation friends, lavished with equipment - the RAF is a whizzy-bangy pointy-thing fixated organisation, so its not surprising that the thought process at the top is 'if you want to be good at something, buy lots of expensive stuff'.

now then, the complex bit: the RAF Regiment chap, being an infantry-type, when asked entirely innocently why join the the RAF instead of the Army has to come up with a reason, and he has to invent a reason because, in the macho persona he seeks to portray 'living in better quarters, eating better food, playing with newer kit and going to less dangerous places' isn't a good answer. so, he begins to toy with the idea of quality - and in this he is prompted by the service rivalry/disdain/contempt between the RAF and, well, everyone else: being a comprehensive school oik with a name like Darren, or Kevin, he knows in his heart he can never wear red trousers with aplomb, or own Yorkshire, or marry a woman who doesn't have tattoos on her knuckles - so he becomes a twisted being, riven with jealosy, he hates the rest of the RAF for looking at him in puzzlement/contempt, he hates the Army because thats where his skills lie but service rivalry and the desire for a more comfortable lifestyle will never allow him to admit it, and he hates himself for wearing slip-on shoes and pretending that dancing on a parade ground is a skill that soldiers should be jealous of.

D-list celebrities trying to resurect their careers before they have to work in porn? yes. soldiers? no.

i've 'worked' with them many times - i've never seen anything about them which suggests they are any better infantrymen than any soldier in any infantry Bn, but i have - almost always - seen the crippling insecurity that forces them to pretend they are something they are not. its, above all, embarrassing.

* not that great an achievement...

discus

That... that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing with the group, OS.

tac foley

OS119 - You said ALL that I was too polite to mention.

The RAF, in general, is an organisation in which 95% of those in it support the 5% who actually justify its existence. I spent 90% of my time in the Army working with, and sometimes for, the RAF. I have been commanded by and have commanded RAF personnel who either shared one particular common 'trade skill' or were being trained in that trade skill, and they were well aware of their respective places in the general scheme of things.

I have never understood the RAF Regiment's claims to elitism, but the vociferous maintenance of this claim 'by proxy' goes way beyond my comprehension.

I'm out of this conversation now.

Thanks, gentlemen, and take care.

tac

Manic Moran

What the hell? We already have one stupid thread on this, we don't need another.