""I'd have expected a hundred soldiers -armed or unarmed - to come running out of the barracks and confront the killers .""

Which is exactly the difference which military training makes. Those soldiers obeyed the rules because that is what they are trained to do.

Had they followed their instincts, it would have made no difference for the victim, and given the suicidal fervour of the killers, we would now be talking about six or more dead soldiers and probably the women tending to the victim as well.

I wondered how long it would take for some know nothing clown to start yakking about cowardice.

The point is that our armed forces are strictly debarred from taking military action in civil matters, and rightly so.

Don T.