By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2014 – The British army’s 1st Battalion
Scots Guards band performed at the Pentagon today, nearly a week after five
British soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, and on the first
day of National Military Appreciation Month in the United States.
Between performances, James J. Townsend Jr., deputy
assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, and British Army
Brigadier Douglas M. Chalmers, liaison officer for the chief of the British
defense staff, delivered remarks to an enthusiastic Pentagon audience.
“We have bled together not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but
over history in many places, in Europe in World War I and in World War II,”
Townsend told Chalmers and the Guardsmen.
“Having you here today is especially important to us,” he
added, “as once again in Europe, in the Baltics and other places, we're
together again facing down activities happening in Crimea and the Ukraine that
go against our values, and it's great to have you alongside us.”
The band is made up of 12 bagpipers, 10 drummers and two
dancers and is led by a pipe major. But for the benefit of the American
audience, Townsend said, the band members do more than play the drums or
bagpipes.
“You are the oldest infantry battalion in the U.K., and you
also have skills in terms of engineering and in terms of all aspects of
combined arms that you display on the battlefield,” he said, adding, “So while
we enjoy your musicianship here, we know being good Scots Guards you enjoy a
scrap.”
As Chalmers addressed the audience, he said he and the Scots
Guards were happy to be at the Pentagon to show their appreciation for the
defense and security partnership the United Kingdom shares with the United States.
“That partnership is deep, it is advanced and it sits on a
bedrock of shared values and beliefs,” he said, adding that over the years
“events have more often than not seen us serve alongside each other in foreign
fields as a result of that partnership.”
“That fact is vividly brought to life to me today by the
Guardsmen … and the pipes and drums, who are infantrymen first,” he added.
“Most of them served alongside U.S. Marines in Helmand toward the end of 2012
and into 2013.”
The Scots Guards formed in 1642 as the Royal Guard to King
James I, Chalmers said, and he encouraged all to reflect on the long history of
military cooperation that has and will continue to be the driving force behind
the U.S.-United Kingdom strategic defense relationship.
“I think our common language, our geography and very much
our shared interwoven history, for all its ups and downs over time, has been
one of genuine trust and honesty,” Chalmers said. “It's not politically
correct. It’s is a genuine relationship that has stood the test of time, and
it’s been proven.”
Over the past 10 years, U.S. and U.K. service members have
worked hand in glove at every level, building up personal relationships between
soldiers and Marines on the U.S. side and on the British side, the brigadier
added.
When British soldiers fought in Afghanistan’s Helmand
province alongside their U.S. Marine Corps colleagues, he said, “it created a
very strong bond, a brothers-in-arms type of affair, that is really special.
And unfortunately, the future looks like it's going to continue keeping that
relationship in place.”
Townsend explained that crises come at the world fast, and
the velocity seems to be increasing. “It's tough to face these kinds of crises
as the United States by ourselves,” he said. “We have the NATO alliance, we
have many bilateral relationships around the world, many allies globally, but
we depend on the U.K. in so many different ways.”
The United States depends on the United Kingdom “not just to
be with us in a scrap somewhere or to handle a crisis, but around the
negotiating tables or the planning tables or around the tables where we try to
think about the future or about what kind of capabilities we should have or
what we can do jointly,” the deputy assistant secretary observed.
“We depend on our relationship with the U.K. to help us face
these things as they come at us,” he added, “so in a lot of ways the U.K. is
first among equals when it comes to dealing with the international crisis of
the day. And I cannot tell you how important that is and how much we depend on
it. They’ve always been there for us, no matter how tough the scrap.”
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