Re: [sg] More on the Gurkhas

>G'day,
>
> >I thought that due to defence cutbacks,
> >several regiments had been amalgamated
> >and one of these was the gurkhas (could
> >be wrong though). Could you see any
> >government getting rid of a group of
> >soilders that cost less in pay than any
> >other regiment they have? (just being cynical here).
>
>IF I remember the doco correctly (and it was last year some time so
this
>could be a little dodgy), it wasn't just the Gurkhas themselves but
their
>families (who after x years of service could join them in the UK/Hong
Kong
>etc). When they handed back Hong Kong and amalgamated the army they
could
>no longer justify having such a large force with all their families
>(especially if they all ended up in the UK). Thus they chopped back and
>sent them back to Nepal. However, some of this could be doco
sensationalism
>as at that point of the doco they went through a phase of strongly
>stressing these people were going from one of the richest nations in
the
>world to the poorest in a very short period of time with no
compensation or
>manner of redress, regardless of how long they'd been serving.

Well, the Britsih Army Gurkhas are very much still here (or some of
them,
at least) - they're barracked just down the road from here  in
Colchester,
and every time I go over there to see friends there's lots of them
walking
round the town centre - there's even a specialist Gurkha restaurant in
town, apparently run by a retired Gurkha NCO and his British wife (it's
said to be very good, though haven't tried it myself yet).
I think the strength of the regiment(s?) may have been scaled down,
along
with a lot of the rest of the army, but they haven't been disbanded.

Jon (GZG)
>
>Now if this is a fair representation of their treatment and if
bureaucracy
>remains the one constant of human civilisation then I serious doubt the
NAC
>would support a resettlement of the Nepalese to another planet, though
it
>is a nice sentiment and as plausible as many other minor nations
created
>for the GZGverse ;)
>
>Cheers
>
>Beth