This story is odd, I knew James Blunt was in the army, there's a clip of him on Blue Peter or something and he's wearing a very smart red uniform and showing some people round a castle. But I didn't know he saw combat. I've never liked his music, his singing voice is quite annoying, and he was cursed with a cockney rhyming slang name, but this story has at least bumped his respect level up to "normal person", from "annoying person".
Blunt refused to fire on Russian troops who had taken an airfield, even disobeying a direct order from a US General (reminds me of Hugh Grant in Love Actually). From the BBC:
In an interview with BBC Radio 5 live, broadcast on Sunday, he said: "I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there.
"I was the lead officer with my troop of men behind us...
"The soldiers directly behind me were from the Parachute Regiment, so they're obviously game for the fight.
"The direct command [that] came in from Gen Wesley Clark was to overpower them. Various words were used that seemed unusual to us. Words such as 'destroy' came down the radio."Blunt goes on to say:
"Fortunately, up on the radio came Gen Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III', and told us why don't we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead...
"There are things that you do along the way that you know are right, and those that you absolutely feel are wrong, that I think it's morally important to stand up against, and that sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army."
Makes you bloody proud.
Still, I don't like "You're Beautiful". Sorry.
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