Posted on 11/10/2004 6:26:25 PM PST by Happy2BMe
The father of two Black Watch soldiers serving at Camp Dogwood in Iraq threatened to kill the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, yesterday because he was a "two-faced lying git".
James Buchanan, whose sons Gary, 27, and Craig, 24, both corporals, were due to return home but then redeployed north to reinforce the American assault on Falluja, said: "This man has got me so angry. If I see him in the street I would kill him. I would kill that man. I would cut his throat."
The former RAF warrant officer's outburst came at the launch of Families Against the War, a group of families who will campaign for British troops to be pulled out of Iraq. They include parents of sons who were killed in Iraq as well as parents of those currently serving.
The launch, on the eve of Armistice day, coincided with an announcement from the Ministry of Defence that two more soldiers had been injured at or near Camp Dogwood, the Black Watch base.
The first, a helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps, was seriously injured when shot at through the windscreen of his aircraft. His co-pilot took control of the Lynx and flew it back to the camp. The pilot was flown to an American hospital in Baghdad. The second soldier was injured in a mortar attack on the helicopter pad inside the camp.
After yesterday's campaign launch, the families walked the short distance to Downing Street to lay a wreath of poppies in remembrance of those killed in Iraq, as well as photographs of their dead sons and a letter to Tony Blair.
Reg Keys, father of Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, one of six Royal Military Policemen killed in Iraq last year, Rose Gentle, mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed this year, and Theresa Evans, mother of Lance Bombardier Llewellyn Evans, the first British military fatality during the war last year, held each other as they stood in front of the door to No 10.
Mrs Evans had earlier broken down at the press conference when Mr Keys told how her son had died in a helicopter crash which was witnessed by her other son.
She wept as Mr Keys told how she had held two funerals for her son - one for his body and another for further body parts sent to her from America. She wept again when the families passed the Cenotaph on Whitehall which remembers the country's war dead.
In their letter to the prime minister, the families said: "When enlisting, service men and women sign an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty's government.
"All these people ask in return is that their government act in an honourable, truthful and honest manner and only deploy troops into the theatre of war to risk their lives when absolutely necessary, when all avenues of diplomacy have been exhausted.
"To deploy troops based on deceit of WMD is totally morally unacceptable. The blame lies firmly at your doorstep. This was a contrived war, a war of option not of necessity."
The laying of the wreath at Downing Street was a contentious issue, with the families initially being told that they wouldn't be able to do so.
Officials finally relented and after observing a minute's silence on the No 10 doorstep, Mr Keys and Mrs Gentle knocked on the door and went inside for just under a minute.
Their earlier request to meet Mr Blair was dismissed. The families then went to a private meeting with 40 cross-party MPs before taking part in an anti-war demonstration in Parliament Square.
During his outburst, Mr Buchanan explained that none of the families involved with the group were anti-military and that fighting was his sons' job. He added, however, that his sons had not signed up to fight for the Americans or for lies.
He said that Mr Hoon had lied to the Black Watch families for three weeks over what was happening to the soldiers.
Mr Buchanan's son Craig, a Warrior driver, had been close friends with Private Piti Tukutukuwaqa, a Fijian member of the Black Watch who was killed in a suicide bomb attack on Monday. His best man had been killed earlier in the conflict.
Four Black Watch soldiers have been killed in hostile action since the deployment to Camp Dogwood.
A number of others have been injured, some seriously, with one soldier losing both legs.
Sounds like an Islamist-in-training to me.
I'd like to see the sons return home safely, and slap some sense into their old man.
Well that kinda talk sure will be popular. What a way to start you rant off...head off, foot in mouth.
"Sounds like an Islamist-in-training to me."
Yeah, really, does he realize that's what they'd like to do to him, and his wife/daughters? At least his sons are armed and trained.
These stinking lefties are a bigger threat to us today than they ever were in the 60s, the commies never did want to kill us all, they just wanted to put us in the yoke of their system. The Islamofacists want to kill ALL of us, and pretty much all of everybody. The worst thing we could do is show them we are unwilling to fight.
At least the American people got this last week.
I tell ya', people have been brainwashed to levels never before seen in Western civilisation. For what it's worth, the soldiers are heroes. The father's an ass.
You believe that BS from the Guardian? If it is not an outright fabrication then they looked real hard to find an idiot like that father. It's not worth even reading why do we post anything from the Guardian, it makes you want to throw up!
Opposition research, mate. ;-)
So true. Here it is all volunteer and unlike the MSM wants people to believe these young men are signing up to go kick some Ass. A few see this as a way to get an education also but most are ready, willing and able to take the fight to the terrorist's front door.
I guess the US forces will have to provide body guards for the British forces, sad....
Save your strength, old man. You have several million Muslims right there in old London who don't seem at all reluctant to take to the streets and preach the Jihad. Thanks to gits like you undermining your own security they may just seize on the opportunity one of these days.
Yes, of course there are. "Nurse, nurse"
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