It certainly is when you don’t understand it. And that for me was the situation I was in when I was fresh from the Army trying to get a job. The first stumbling block for me was the language, people talk in jargon, I think we all do it and not necessarily through conscious thought. The military is especially bad for it, anachronisms are used a lot; a prime example is SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures). In fact, if you stop...

According to reports I have read in the papers today the new coalition government is pledging to double the operational allowance for armed forces personnel serving in Afghanistan, and include armed forces pay in its plans for a fair pay review. They are also planning a cut of “at least 25 per cent” in Ministry of Defence running costs following controversy over the levels of bureaucracy in the department. The issue over...

Finally there are moves being put in place to assist ex-armed forces personnel that are finding themselves in the criminal justice system. These moves are not coming from government but from the Kent constabulary which has launched an initiative in conjunction with SSAFA Forces Help, which involves checking all persons that are in custody during the pre-release procedure to see if they are ex-armed forces. If they are they will be given...

I have been looking around trying to decide why people leave the armed forces, what they do after wards and what resources there are for them.  Leaving is a big change for people that have put in more than 6 years service and generally is not taken lightly. The links below lead to some of my discoveries, I would be interested to learn the thoughts of others on this. It seems to me, and I am by no means an expert, that not enough is being...