Iran to free sailors

[tortoiseSHELL]

here

do they really get paid enough to give their life for your country? slowly whilst being tortured?

i am glad that they didnt act irrationally. and now they have been freed - it seems their approach was a good one to take - rather than one of hostility.

i think if you look back at 40's and 50's was films soldiers always had a fag in hand.

i think its more of a societal shift than a cultural one within the forces.

the new way of dealing with being captured is to go along with everything you are asked to do

I wondered about the fighting back at first but assume our forces are under strict orders not to spark off any sort of battle with the Iranians (i.e. attempt to fight off being captured).

Oh I agree but I think it'd be interesting to hear exactly why they behaved as they did.

I'm wondering if they knew they were 'lost' all along so that's why they behaved as they did.

If it was my DH being paraded around on Iranian television for the whole world to see I wouldn't give a toss if he was smoking or smiling because
A) I'd be so bloody pleased to see that he was alive
B) If he was smiling and smoking then he was obviously not being tortured in any way.

I think the world as a whole will realise what fine people we have in the Armed Forces, and probably wouldn't notice if they were smoking. Surely you wouldn't want to see them crying and looking distressed?

As to why they were complying with their captors, well none of them would be trained in interrogation techniques, they were ordinary sailors, it was probably better for them to comply, plus we don't know what they were told. if they had no access to Western Tv or consulate staff, they were maybe being told that they were definately in iranian waters and that the UK government had admitted it.

Who said they were lost?

The sailors would possible have no weapons, or if they did they would be pistols. HMS Cornwall was too far away to be of much good and becasue the Iranians didn't shoot when boarding the plane, well that would be why the helicopeter hovering over head didn't fire at them

It is procedure really to attempt to make yourself as amenable as possible to the captors. The name rank and serial number thing relates to procedures during war. Since we are not at war with Iran, I think that their behaviour was completely consistent with just trying to deal with their imprisonment without aggravating or enraging their captors.
I think that it is pretty rough to underestimate the sense of being completely alone that they may have felt, without access to news and images. They would have been pretty isolated, barely armed to take on a gunboat and so on.
Give them a break.
They got home safely and made Iran look bloody foolish internationally at the same time.