Service personnel from RAF Wittering have been advised not to wear their uniforms in nearby Peterborough when off-duty, because of verbal abuse from locals opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A senior officer at the base fought back the tears as he told reporters that only the other day, a Flight Lieutenant had been subjected to a vicious and unprovoked outburst of name-calling (i.e. “Oi, Biggles! Where’s your Spitfire?”) and was now experiencing dreadful flashbacks, while a Squadron Leader who had left his Harrier in the Tesco car park for ten minutes had returned to find an offensive note attached to the windscreen saying “This car is too big – please think of the environment”, and had been sent on indefinite compassionate leave, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We must defend our Forces' right to wear their uniforms in public,” said Defence Minister Des Browne. “This is not a situation we should tolerate. We learned about this today and are investigating it as a matter of urgency. These cowardly anti-war scum should remember that Peterborough is just about within the operational range of Wittering’s Harrier strike wing, and nobody would miss it should it be wiped off the face of the earth.”
However, Peterborough police said they were unaware of any reports of service personnel being abused - although they stressed that this did not necessarily mean that the whole thing had been made up by a cynical MoD as cheap propaganda to discredit anti-war campaigners.
Meanwhile, reports that RAF personnel - who often have no means of retaliating, as they only come up with a suitably crushing riposte on their way back to the base - are to be issued with books of smart quotes to aid them in the rapid deployment of wit and sarcasm are, as yet, unconfirmed.
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