It is bad enough to be reviled behind your back by some Afghan government officials who decry Britain's valiant soldiers fighting the Taliban as simply not up to the mark, adding how their battlefield performance pales in comparison with that of their U.S. counterparts.

But now a leaked British army memo has added to the woes of UK military commanders by suggesting that some of their men are simply too fat to fight effectively in Afghanistan.

The leaked memo written by Major Brian Dupree focuses on an 'indifferent' attitude to physical fitness, adding that there are now more soldiers who are 'unfit to deploy' — thus undermining 'operational effectiveness.'

'The current army fitness policy states that to be fit to fight requires a minimum of two to three hours of physical activity per week. It is clear that even this most basic policy is not being implemented,' said Major Dupree in his report leaked to the media.

'To cope with the demands of hybrid operations in Afghanistan and future conflicts the army needs personnel with that battle-winning edge that sustains them through adversity. It is clear this message has been diluted recently and this attitude must change.

'The increasing PUD (personnel unfit to deploy) list and concerns over obesity in the services are clearly linked to this indifferent attitude.'

The prevalence of fat British soldiers has been explained by the UK Ministry of Defence's decision to relax the rules of physical fitness for those applying to join the army. Analysts say the ministry is simply being realistic by recognising that British teenagers are more prone to obesity than they were a decade ago.

Three years ago new Defence Ministry rules allowed for the recruitment of soldiers who had a body mass index of 32, two points higher than the World Health Organisation's definition of obesity.

What this means is that the army will now accept applications from 22 year olds who are 5feet 8 inches tall and over 200 pounds in weight. Such applicants, according to health experts, are at typically high risk for such conditions as hypertension, dyslipidemia, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and endometrial, breast and colon cancer.

Major Dupree's report has yet to reach the desks of those Afghan government officials who have been scathing in private about the British army's performance in the troubled Helmand province. They say that recently deployed U.S. troops in Helmand are more effective and have been able to achieve in one week what the British have been unable to achieve in six months.

'Gentle giants' of Florida

The Burmese python, one of Florida's most exotic imports, is being targeted by U.S. hunters who say it is a predator dangerous to humans and other animals.
Although the snake's natural native habitat is India's northeast and Southeast nations as far away as Cambodia, some Americans with an eye for the unusual have been importing Burmese pythons for years to keep as live trophies or pets.

A few have escaped and many others have been released into the moist, warm environment of the Florida Everglades where some experts estimate the population of  these reptiles could be as high as 180,000.
The Burmese python hit the headlines earlier this year when an eight foot, albino version escaped from its glass cage and strangled a two year old girl as she lay asleep in her mother's Florida home.
The resulting outcry led to calls for urgent action to cull the Burmese python population before it gets out of hand. According to the U.S. Humane Society, at least 17 people have been attacked by pythons in the last decade and seven have died.

Not everyone sees the snakes as demonic monsters. Biologists and other experts working in the Everglades describe them as 'magnificent', adding that the Burmese pythons in particular are the 'gentle giants' of the python world.

Senator Bill Nelson who represents Florida in the U.S. Congress remains to be convinced. 'The crown jewel of our national park system has been transformed into a hunting ground for these predators,' he said in testimony before the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wild Life. 'It's just a matter of time before one of these snakes gets to a visitor.'

Nelson wants fellow lawmakers to classify pythons as injurious animals. This could be the first step towards severely restricting or banning their future imports into the U.S. Nelson is also seeking authorisation from the federal government to licence a snake hunt in Florida this coming winter. This means the Burmese python could soon become an endangered species, at least in the U.S.

Sunny days in the subcontinent

Myanmar, Bangladesh and India's northeast have been highlighted by a World War II legend whose book of memoirs was published in late August.

Dame Vera Lynn is best associated with such sentimental favourites as 'We'll meet again', 'White cliffs of Dover' and 'It's a lovely day tomorrow', reminding war fatigued British soldiers of their sweethearts and families back home.
In her newly published autobiography entitled Some Sunny Day, she tells of how she was based in Dimapur, India, during a three month tour along the Myanmar border where Allied troops were pushing back the Japanese.
'I was in Dimapur in 1944. I went over to entertain the troops and Dimapur was one of the places I was sent to, to visit the hospitals there. They were casualty hospitals, they were just tents and bamboo huts. It's where the casualties were first taken before they were moved further back nearer to real hospitals in Calcutta or Chittagong,' Dame Vera explained in an exclusive interview.

Asked what Dimapur was like in those days, she replies, 'Well, it was just sort of more or less jungle, country type style you know. There weren't any houses or villages around at that time. It was just a base to bring wounded soldiers down from further back where the trouble was in Kohima. Where I was staying there were just little grass huts, there was no village there then. There was just this makeshift hospital where casualties were first taken.'
During her three months stay, Dame Vera recalls how the British army accommodated her by the river in a little grass hut that was called a basher. Meals were taken in the verandah of the basher where, 'We had to watch our soup because of the flies. You needed a little twist of the hand to get beneath the solid layer of flies that settled on the soup. There were sufficient flies to make you not want to consume.'

Other forms of 'wild' life that she had to endure included mosquitoes and bush rats that seemed to live in the roof of the basher.

'The mosquitoes weren't so bad because we always had to go around with long sleeves and long trousers…the boys were always ticking me off for rolling my sleeves up. At night we had nets which I tucked into my camp bed. Later at night I'd hear the bush rats scampering about the top part of the bashar. They're like squirrels, or a large rat with a big bush tail, probably unique to the wildlife from that part of the world.'

Among those she befriended in Dimapur were two BBC correspondents with whom she spent one memorable evening after a hard day out in the field with the soldiers.

'Oh yes, Dicky Sharp and Jerry — I can't remember Jerry's surname. They were there reporting on the problem there, on the war. One night we were talking outside our huts and they said they'd been to the officers' mess and there was nothing there for them to drink. Suddenly, I remembered this bottle of Canadian Club that this old colonel had given me for 'medicinal purposes'; only, he said, not to drink it 'unless you need it.' I carried it around in my little haversack for a long time, but then I thought the need was there that particular night.

'We'd had a bad day and there we were out there alone in the jungle and I brought it out. The problem was there wasn't any water. They went to the Dimapur mess but there wasn't any water. All the water had to be dropped in, you see. You couldn't touch the river water and there was no water on tap. So of course we all sat there and sipped our Canadian Club whisky neat.

'I went off to my little grass hut and left them to it and left the bottle with them. Whether they drank it all that night, I don't know.'

When Dame Vera first arrived in India from the UK, travelling on board a Sunderland Flying Fortress, the army had booked her to go to Kohima and visit U.S. troops serving beyond what was called the (American built) Lido road. But the plans were changed at the last moment because the situation was deemed to be too serious; so Dimapur was chosen as the alternative destination.

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