Welcome to the Official Westbury Town Forums
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
News: Please take a moment to read the Forum Rules
 

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Paying respect to the Iraq/Afghanistan war dead.  (Read 241 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Alg
Global Moderator
Forum Addict
*****

Karma: 445
Offline Offline

Posts: 2925



« on: November 16, 2008, 19:09:50 »

As some of you may be aware I left the Shire and now live in Newmarket Suffolk.
Nearby are 2 air bases (Lakenheath and Mildenhall) and often I see their big transport planes flying around.
When I lived in Westbury I saw plenty of planes I assumed were coming out of or in to RAF Lynham.

I'd often wondered what the planes were specifically doing and one day realised that some of them must be sadly carrying the bodies of servicemen back home to their grieving loved ones.

Now, when someone dies in and around where we live we get to see their coffin driven through the streets in a black hearis. We know what's going on and can stop for a split second, perhaps consider how lucky we are and maybe pay our brief respects to the dead.
MY SUGGESTION:
If there was one or two Transport planes painted in a specific colour or livery, maybe completely white or black or maybe painted with a red cross on the belly, (who knows? suggestions?) and used to bring bodies home,  people would be aware of the purpose of the flight and could stop and give a moment of thought to who was being carried on board.

Would this be a good idea or would people consider it a bit morbid? We see heariss every week as it is.
Would the Govt or Air Force let it happen or would they consider it damaging to the morale/spirit of the country?
What do you think?

nb I don't agree with war but these men/lads gave have had their lives ended and I think it's quite sad that they arrive back in the country without any recognition/realisation from members of the general public until they're buried locally.

Logged

I refuse to prove that I exist, says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
This post was brought to you by the letters A, L and G.
Silly rabbit tricks are made for kids, dontcha know that?
This is my world, you're just a squirl tryin'a get a nut.
Andy
Global Moderator
Forum Addict
*****

Karma: 929
Offline Offline

Posts: 3467


Look up, you never know what you may see.


« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2008, 20:16:15 »

It's a good respectful idea, but the Hercules are the colour they are for camouflage reasons (eg. for the Gulf war there were sandy coloured aircraft).

When you saw them flying over Westbury, often in twos and threes, they were either doing training flights using Keevil airfield as a base or involved with exercises on Salisbury Plain  Smiley .
Logged

Happy :-) !

2 quotes by me....
- Nature is wonderful, you just need the time to stop, look and listen.
- Look up, you never know what you may see.
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.16 | SMF © 2011, Simple Machines
Page created in 0.042 seconds with 20 queries.
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS! Welcome to the Official Westbury Town Forums LiveMC Theme by grafitus