Very surprised to see two Sgt (ATC) travelling in uniform on a train seemingly on the way back from Cranwell. Surely that isn’t sensible?
Why not?
They are authorised to do so (AP 1358C para 0112), there is no specific threat and comes down to personal choice…
indeed and ACP237 Chapter 5 also indicates
[quote]11. In Transit. Uniformed staff may wear uniform when in transit, with the approval of their
OC Wg and security state permitting. However, clean and appropriate civilian clothes are to
be worn when travelling to/from overseas camps[/quote]
edit: i should mention ACP237 is the ACP for annual camps, which is as close to ATF gets for CFAVs
Indeed latest generic advice from Reg Comd agrees - personal choice. Civilian jacket over the top is authorised again, though (I seem to recall that authorisation was briefly suspended) as an option.
It is and don’t call me Shirley…
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Well alright then. Still not the decision I’d make.
I agree, personal choice, but not I’d make! I don’t even commute in uniform in the car!
It doesn’t matter what you wear these day. Locint reports have identified isolated cases of people being “targetted” for carrying a rucksack with a subdued union flag on it!
Besides in London you get free Travel on TfL if you are in full uniform.
If you’re not going to wear it traveling on the off-chance, then you wouldn’t wear it anywhere, unless you treated it like a work ‘uniform’ and got changed in/out at the sqn.
All of my life we have been under some terrorist threat or other and if it was that much of a problem no one would join.
do you fancy being the first?
its not presented itself as a problem because, so far, no CFAV has been run down in the street and beheaded. however taking the attitude that presenting the nutjobs with easily identifiable, soft targets until the day after Flt Lt Dave Jones or FS Bob Smith have been hacked apart on Youtube is, imho, not a very clever idea…
i suppose the one upside of people taking the view that they lived through PIRA so they will live through DIY IS is that at least the easy targets will get done first - for placing yourself between the local IS wannabe and myself, i thank you. 
That is why it is down to the individual. If you don’t feel safe wearing your uniform in your area, don’t do it. If you do, crack on. I personally don’t feel at risk in my area so I don’t worry about being in uniform.
The thing where do you stop? We could take down all indicators of sqn premises having a military connection and no one wears a uniform. I wear a jacket to and from activities just as because that’s what I always have done. Means I have somewhere to put keys etc rather than trouser pockets. But when we do collecting for Wings, Poppy, various parades and public events, we are in uniform, do we stop doing things like that? I’m sure that’s the desired outcome for those with ill intent in mind. What I do move away from is wearing ‘DPM’ as I feel there is greater association of DPM and military than blue-grey. The blue suit makes you like a shopping centre security guard. I if wear ‘greens’ you’ll get “look it’s a soldier mummy”, but nothing like that when I’m in blues.
As a cadet we paraded in a TA Centre and when things happened there were armed guards and security checks done on the gates and when I was staff this included full car checks. If anyone wanted to watch us and target us there was plenty of opportunity, so being in uniform is neither here or there, who knows if people’s car regs’s are taken, movements to and from Sqn HQs are noted and uniform or not they could be targets just by association.
When you look at the incidents that have been reported over the years they have been entirely random, Lee Rigby wasn’t in uniform and felt that he was as safe as he could have been.
I remember going to London a few days after the Knightsbridge bombings in the 80s, both of my parents had lived in or around London during WW2 instilled a mindset of life as normal. My dad is a bit older than mum and has said you had to just get on with life or you could have gone mad. If a CFAV was specifically targeted, ie not just some random in uniform, then things would take on a completely different complexion.
in short, would that the ACO was populated by people with the wit or imagination to make sensible decisions about whether it was, or was not, safe.
the professionalisation that was long expounded as being the key to the future has produced little but a generation of box tickers with less imagination than a rock and such subservience to instruction that when instruction doesn’t happen, they simply do nothing.
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I took a cadet to hospital once and was dressed in working blues. I got mistaken for a porter. 
I to grew up with the very real threat of the PIRA. They were proper terrorists who knew what they were doing. They were a real threat to HM Forces and this country and mounted many attacks both in the UK and abroad.
ISIS (in this country at least) on the other hand seem not to have a clue and can only get nut jobs armed with knives to do their dirty work. Random and scary when something happens but not really very good and not much of a threat to the UK.
I for one will continue the wear my uniform with pride, not hide the fact that I am in a very very very small way a part of HM forces and if somebody is not happy with that then I for one will not be loosing sleep over it.
Interesting. Just bear in mind that it is the RAF, not the Army or the Navy, who are currently bombing IS in Syria and Iraq and it was the RAF who were recently praised for intercepting radio traffic regarding terrorist threats to UK towns.
Our current crop of homegrown terrorist players may indeed be stupid, but that in my view makes it all the more possible that they could select someone from our organisation as a target. I think it’s an absolute disgrace that I cannot wear my uniform proudly in public, but where I live, you would be stupid to do so. Even without the very low risk of coming across the dangerous knife/gun men, you are highly likely to get a tirade of abuse. So unless I’m at a major event which will be well policed, I don’t advertise that I’m anything to do with HM Forces. Oh, anyone going bag packing this year? Be careful, a known IS ‘soldier’ now in Syria used to work in our local Morrisons!
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