If there really has been a moratorium on TA training I would be horrified. The TA have proven their utility in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years and the experience/training gap between the TA and regular army has never been smaller. It would damage the credibility of the TA enormously if this plan is put in place.
People join the TA because they want to train, develop and are more than willing to fight along side their regular counterparts, regular exercises keeps a degree of momentum which aids retention. If the training is stopped for a significant period there will be a number soldiers who will just not come back after the six months is over.
This government has seen the TA almost halve in size just at a time when it has been most busy, I am genuinely worried that this could be the final nail in the coffin.
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Gordon is winding down the armed services so that President Blair can invade from Europe if Cameron revisits the Lisbon Treaty.
Could the government not sell off the TA?
Surely somebody like Mark Thatcher would welcome the opportunity to buy their own private army, which they could use to invade Equatorial Guniea, Iraq or other countries with oil.
I'm guessing many TA members vote Conservative so this is a way for Brown to hurt his enemies and save cash.
Of course it also shows that Labour either don't believe the argument Labour put forward about not making cuts in a recession in public services, or else the money is really running out - despite all the printing going on.
James will know me of old, and if the story pans out to be true we should be very concerned that the future deployment plans are adjusted accordingly. It is an untruth that reservists are simply trained through OPTAG pre-deployment ready for operations, a significant amount of psychological build up and muscle memory development is also required at the physiological level. As a TA commander, I have done this training of my troops three times, on one occasion even commanded them in combat operations in Basrah city. It does not fill me with confidence that our experience of kinetic actions will be thinned out, replaced by process. What do we say when inevitably TA soldiers start making mistakes and endanger themselves and others on Ops because they've just had a 10-day training package? Or is that the intent so we can abolish the TA as being ineffective?
Incredibly short sighted if true and in the big £ scheme of things very, very small fry. Does this mean that soldiers who have not yet completed 30 days training will not receive their bounty? First class war operations, second class citizens - Churchill would turn in his grave.
JC drop me line, happy to discuss.
Interestingly Downing Street are refusing to accept e-petitions on this issue because they say that they duplicate an existing petition about falling TA numbers - doesn't that rather suggest they accept the argument that lack of training is connected with falling numbers!
G Willey
Here's my answer to your question.
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