Cashing in on their Capture: UK Sailors & Marines Disgrace

By: Steve Yuhas

It is not enough that the fifteen British sailors and Marines gave up without a fight when Iranians decided to take them captive for a week and a half – now some of them are cashing in.  The worst part is the justification put out by British leaders that equates this group of people with winners of the Victoria Cross – the moral equivalent of the US Medal of Honor.  Frankly, I’m embarrassed for the UK over this blunder.

First, each of the fifteen come home to a heroes welcome and were quickly bestowed with the perks of the highest award for valor “in the face of the enemy” that the UK has to offer in language of the Victoria Cross.  From the creation of the award in 1856 that commemorated the valor of the men who fought in the Crimean War only a handful of awards were handed out – a total of 1,356 as of this writing.  Since WWII only 13 of the cherished awards were granted including only one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. 

That group of awards and the award itself is now sullied since more awards are being metaphorically issued to a group of people who gave up to their enemy than have been awarded in total since WWII while facing the enemy.  It is unconscionable to most men and women in uniform that all you have to do is allow yourself to be captured, make a few television appearances, eat some chow for the cameras and make mock confessions and you get equated to a genuine hero, but some of these 15 are eating it up and cashing in.

Truth be told it typically takes dying to achieve the Victoria Cross since only around 10% of people who receive the award are actually alive to accept it so it is ironic that the recipients of that award would be the one that the British government would choose to compare the sailors and Marines to.  Still, the Ministry of Defense likened the capture of these Britons to someone receiving that award in order to allow them to sell their stories.  Proving the new Persian Gulf theme song that it pays to be on the right boat at the right time when the Iranians come calling.

There is absolutely no question that the sailors and Marines who were captured by Iran and held as a public mockery of British impotence were mistreated and scared.  The lone woman among the captives, Faye Turner, claims that she was being fitted for a coffin and some of the male shipmates believed they were being executed in the time honored Iranian tradition of mock executions.  Were these people traumatized – yes; were these people valiant?  No, but they will be well paid.

Then someone at the Ministry of Defense had an idea and with the consent of the Prime Minister allows these servicemen to sell their stories.  Are there really no forward looking people running the UK these days?  You simply must question the judgment of the people in charge.  Did they not realize what Iran will do with this news?  All they had to do was look to how Iran behaved in the past, but they didn’t – they let the people talk for cash and now Iran has started the trickle.  They will release even more pictures of the group of fifteen having fun and those pictures will probably trickle for weeks – constantly mocking the former empire. 

If I were the propaganda minister of Iran I would take full advantage of the cash changing hands, at some estimate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Turner story (or non-story), and poke even more fun of the UK whose highest award is “going” to people who did absolutely nothing to defend themselves and allowed their capture because they did not want to cause an incident and they realized they were outgunned.  Boy – that is valiant!

Being outgunned and firing on the enemy (at least we know that some in Europe consider Iran an enemy) is valor and that is exactly what the Victoria Cross is supposed to honor.  To put this into perspective – the United States received the Victoria Cross for the unknown soldier of WWI and promptly reciprocated with a Medal of Honor for the British equivalent.  Now the Victoria Cross is being used in press releases to compare the fifteen captured Brits – time to send that medal back to the Queen.

Would any United States commander actually recommend a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine for a Medal of Honor – or liken their behavior to the recipient of one – when they were captured without firing a shot, being a little scared and coming home in a couple weeks with gifts from their captors (which at least one of the fifteen say they may sell on EBay)?  Any US commander or NCO would be laughed out of his unit for something like that, but this is the new UK.  The old UK was a Margaret Thatcher don’t touch my islands (Falklands for those of you not in the know) kind of place; the new UK seems to be more the take our sailors and give them to us please UK.

Quickly followed up by polite thank you notes and perhaps fish and chips; a new day has dawned.

Selling their stories is more than unseemly or tacky – it is wrong.  But when you have the prime minister’s permission do you blame them?  The highest ranking sailor among the fifteen, Royal Navy Lieutenant Felix Carman, says that selling of stories is “a bit unsavory”, but he’ll be selling his story, but his money will go to charity.  It seems that the Royal Marines are taking the high road so far, but all of that may change by the end of the news cycle. 

Former British military and political leaders from all parties are almost in full agreement that making money from the stories is bad enough – the former head of the Royal Navy called the whole thing “tacky.” But the public and people who are fighting on the ground and those who lost loved ones to the war are even angrier that not only were these fifteen allowed to make money, but they’re being compared to war heroes by talking about the Victoria Cross.

The British cannot take back the money that has already changed hands, but they can certainly reconsider whether or not what these fifteen faced is truly worthy of even mentioning their nation’s highest award for valor.  The government should say they made a mistake in how they talked about the fifteens’ couple weeks of captivity and remind people of the enormous sacrifice of true heroes.

There is not valor in not firing a shot and allowing your unit to be captured by a foreign navy, no valor in making televised confessions and no valor in simply being afraid.  Using that as a judge for selling stories makes every grunt on the ground in Iraq worthy of earning money and a metaphorical medal.

To sully the name of the award that so many gave their lives to achieve should have been an arduous decision for British leaders, but it seems to have come easily to people who want to fend off the new reality television stars that their sailors have become.  Time to send them back to the front – television stars they’re not – fighting men and a woman is what they’re supposed to be.

Steve Yuhas is a radio talk show host on AM 600 KOGO and may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com