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Authors: Bernard O'Mahoney
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as 'Sir' in front of civilians. These precautions were designed to prevent terrorists identifying them as officers. The thinking was that an officer would present a more tempting target than a mere squaddie. I understood the logic of this, but I still resented it, especially when the officers who in camp would put you on a charge for not calling them 'Sir' were the ones who outside camp would be most upset if you called them 'Sir'. At checkpoints, I made a point of calling officers 'Sir' whenever I could, especially in front of Catholics. Some officers would get really freaked, 'O'Mahoney! Don't call me "Sir". How many times do you have to be told?'
It's difficult to describe how I felt about 'the Troubles'. It wasn't exactly a case of being torn between two sides - I knew which side I was on. I was a British soldier, and I had no time for the IRA. Yet I agreed with the republican goal of a united Ireland and I secretly admired the hunger strikers, even though sometimes I could feel elated at their deaths.
The strange thing was that while I could allow myself to feel satisfied that a hunger striker had died, I didn't like to see English soldiers, especially middle-class officers, sneering at hunger strikers' deaths. Contradiction was the dominant force in my mind.
Life was full of injustice: everyone behaving unjustly to everyone else. That was the way of the world, it seemed to me. I'd felt this from an early age and, in some ways, I suppose this feeling helped me resolve the contradictions in my mind. I stopped getting bothered about who was right and who was wrong. Everyone was right and everyone was wrong. My only goal was survival.
I was sitting in the canteen one day with a group of soldiers from my regiment. Someone was reading an Irish newspaper containing reports about the Pope's convalescence after his shooting in Rome. A double-page pull-out poster showed him in better days celebrating mass in front of a huge crowd. In the picture, he held his shepherd's crook in one hand. His other hand was raised to give a blessing. Underneath the photo stood the words, 'Pray for His Holiness'. I stuck the poster above the hotplate and sat back down with my mates. We all started giggling.
Around five minutes later, a group of about twelve UDR and police walked in, among them Billy Bunter. Suddenly I heard him shout, 'You Fenian bastard!' I looked up and he was pointing at the poster. What happened next was extraordinary. At least six UDR men ran to the poster and tore it violently from its place. Then, in a group frenzy, they ripped it to pieces, spat on it and finally stamped on it, all the time shouting madly.
My mates and I were laughing. Billy saw us and ran over, his face afire with anger. He looked at me and shouted, 'Who put that up there? Who fucking put that up there?'
I said, 'What are you talking about, you idiot?'
We denied having anything to do with it - and no one outside my group had seen me put it up.
Billy said, 'You saw it up there and you did nothing about it.'
They were all deadly serious. I'm sure they'd have been less offended by a bomb. Elizabeth told me later that two of the UDR people had gone to the ops room to demand an officer launch an inquiry to find the culprit.
The incident created a lot of bad feeling between our regiment and the UDR. It overshadowed the rest of the tour. It seemed to confirm the suspicions of some UDR soldiers that our regiment was a haven for IRA sympathisers. I wasn't aware of many sympathisers, but there were plenty of hooligans. In my mind, hooligans made the best soldiers. On the ground, dealing with real people in real situations, the army barmies were often clueless, whereas natural-born hooligans like me and a few others could deal effectively with whatever trouble came our way.
To escape the tensions of active service - at least that was my excuse - I started
It's difficult to describe how I felt about 'the Troubles'. It wasn't exactly a case of being torn between two sides - I knew which side I was on. I was a British soldier, and I had no time for the IRA. Yet I agreed with the republican goal of a united Ireland and I secretly admired the hunger strikers, even though sometimes I could feel elated at their deaths.
The strange thing was that while I could allow myself to feel satisfied that a hunger striker had died, I didn't like to see English soldiers, especially middle-class officers, sneering at hunger strikers' deaths. Contradiction was the dominant force in my mind.
Life was full of injustice: everyone behaving unjustly to everyone else. That was the way of the world, it seemed to me. I'd felt this from an early age and, in some ways, I suppose this feeling helped me resolve the contradictions in my mind. I stopped getting bothered about who was right and who was wrong. Everyone was right and everyone was wrong. My only goal was survival.
I was sitting in the canteen one day with a group of soldiers from my regiment. Someone was reading an Irish newspaper containing reports about the Pope's convalescence after his shooting in Rome. A double-page pull-out poster showed him in better days celebrating mass in front of a huge crowd. In the picture, he held his shepherd's crook in one hand. His other hand was raised to give a blessing. Underneath the photo stood the words, 'Pray for His Holiness'. I stuck the poster above the hotplate and sat back down with my mates. We all started giggling.
Around five minutes later, a group of about twelve UDR and police walked in, among them Billy Bunter. Suddenly I heard him shout, 'You Fenian bastard!' I looked up and he was pointing at the poster. What happened next was extraordinary. At least six UDR men ran to the poster and tore it violently from its place. Then, in a group frenzy, they ripped it to pieces, spat on it and finally stamped on it, all the time shouting madly.
My mates and I were laughing. Billy saw us and ran over, his face afire with anger. He looked at me and shouted, 'Who put that up there? Who fucking put that up there?'
I said, 'What are you talking about, you idiot?'
We denied having anything to do with it - and no one outside my group had seen me put it up.
Billy said, 'You saw it up there and you did nothing about it.'
They were all deadly serious. I'm sure they'd have been less offended by a bomb. Elizabeth told me later that two of the UDR people had gone to the ops room to demand an officer launch an inquiry to find the culprit.
The incident created a lot of bad feeling between our regiment and the UDR. It overshadowed the rest of the tour. It seemed to confirm the suspicions of some UDR soldiers that our regiment was a haven for IRA sympathisers. I wasn't aware of many sympathisers, but there were plenty of hooligans. In my mind, hooligans made the best soldiers. On the ground, dealing with real people in real situations, the army barmies were often clueless, whereas natural-born hooligans like me and a few others could deal effectively with whatever trouble came our way.
To escape the tensions of active service - at least that was my excuse - I started
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