British veterans made to fight another battle by the MOD to keep their compensation

On a day when the bodies of four UK servicemen are flown back home after making the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan the MOD are in the Court of Appeal. Why may you ask are they costing the British tax payer tens of thousands in legal bills? To make the lives of our young injured servicemen some who have horrific injuries better? No they are once again making our Heroes fight another battle for adequate compensation that must last them for the rest of their lives. A soldier with the Light Dragoons Anthony Duncan, who now walks with crutches after being shot while on patrol in Iraq, was originally awarded £9,250 which was increased to £46,000 by an appeal tribunal. £9,250 I’m sure the average House of Commons MP will put in a larger expenses bill for toilet paper than that. Then we have Royal Marine Matthew McWilliams who fractured his thigh in a military exercise and was awarded £8,250 later increased to £28,750 on appeal. When I first heard the news about this I assumed that these men had been awarded far more than this. It was nothing like £484,000 that was awarded to an RAF typist that had a sore finger. Its one thing getting injured whilst in the service of your Country, but then to have go through this disgraceful ordeal is something else and can only add to the depression of your original illness. Your Government thinking of you as some kind of burden. The same Government that sends these young men and woman to War in the first place. Military commanders will always want more assets, helicopters , radios , boots on the ground. But these boots on the ground are filled with human beings that due to the nature of the job can get extremely badly hurt or killed. The MOD should also consider paying for our servicemen’s injuries part of the Bill of going to War. I’m sure that most of the General public would not begrudge these men this compensation that on the face of it isn’t very much anyway. Like the Governments stance on the Gurkhas, they have made a serious error of judgement in this case and feelings amongst the British public and the military community will be running high. In my opinion servicemen & woman are being discriminated against due to the nature of their job. This would never happen if it were a policeman, Fire-fighter, Ambulance man ect..But for some strange reason Soldiers are fair game. The Government are reaping their rewards of the mishandling of our economy due to the high numbers of recruits looking for work. Just remember if you are thinking of signing that dotted line, if you join the military you will never meet such loyal friends in your life as your fellow soldiers. Once you have been in combat there will always be a bond between you, a bond that those penny pinching MOD lawyers could never understand but you could end up like Anthony Duncan or Matthew McWilliams, or even worse being saluted as you lie dead in a coffin being mourned by the crowds in Wooton Bassatt. Sometimes your longest War begins when you hand your uniform in and rejoin civvie street.