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British troops take aim at sailors' payouts
By Al Webb
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 13, 2007


LONDON -- Fellow servicemen and women have turned their fury on the British sailors and marines who sold the stories of their 13 days in captivity in Iran, saying the crew had "embarrassed the nation" and in lining their own pockets had "trampled on the graves of the fallen."
The 14 men and one woman of the frigate HMS Cornwall were criticized heavily on military Internet chat rooms and in a series of postings on two unofficial military Web sites, Rum Ration (www.rumration.co.uk) and British Army Rumour Service (www.arrse.co.uk).
All 15 have come under fire over their filmed activities during captivity, including seemingly carefree scenes of them clad in tracksuits and playing chess and table tennis or watching a soccer match on television -- in sharp contrast to the stories of anguish, threats and maltreatment that they told after they were freed.
But the heaviest flak was aimed at Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman in the group, for having pocketed a reported $117,000 payoff for her story, and Seaman Arthur Batchelor, at 20 the youngest of the 15, who complained that he was paid "less than a tenth" of Seaman Turney's fee. That, he said, was not even enough to buy a car.

The young seaman complained that during his capture, the Iranians stole his IPod and he conceded that he had cried himself to sleep after his captors nicknamed him "Mr. Bean," a comically nerdish figure in British entertainment. To his dismay, his critics back home have now eagerly seized on it.
"It's perfectly fair to criticize Mr. Bean," said one Rum Ration contributor. "Not for being unattractive ... but for being a complete numpty wimp who blubbed [cried] when they took his iPod, blubbed when they flicked the back of his neck, blubbed when they called him Mr. Bean and asked Faye for a big huggy-wuggy when they met up."
Another suggested on the British Army Rumour Service site that "Mr. Bean will be known as that for the rest of his life, so I hope the cash was worth it."

http://washtimes.com/world/20070413-012809-3245r.htm