Curator,
Re those foot patrols.
They would walk the same streets day after day to keep the peace, thanklessly, and fully exposed to sniper and bomb.
I am guessing that you have done some rifle shooting, so I am surprised you make it sound so difficult to get to a safe vantage point, plug some poor lad in the back, and run away.

Surely just pointless, risk free, killing.
Like squashing a butterfly.

Is it not the case that the gunmen had a slavering lust for English soldiers blood that made them utterly unconcerned for the safety of bystanders. Why else blow up pubs full of people in the hope a few off duty soldiers might be among the dead? Why else empty magazines into 3 Australian tourists because, as young lads with short haircuts, they might be off duty soldiers? Plant a bomb to dismember ceremonial cavalry men and their horses?

The latest dirty little secret came out because of an attack of conscience. How rare that must be in those people.

No one with a conscience could have been part of the "operation" when two off duty soldiers, aged seventeen, were lured to their executioners by 2 pretty Judas girls.
Or planting bombs in busy shopping streets and, when ordinary shoppers and children die, blame the police for not evacuating them quickly enough.

I would be ashamed to be associated with any unit who behaved so badly.