Gareth, most unfortunate that the guillotine didn't make it across the channel!

Seriously, there is a difference between Us'ns and the UK'ers:
U. S.- The army is ....was
UK- The army are ....were
This distinction with collective nouns shows up frequently in writings from the two countries.

Was (wuz) and were (wur, wear)- lots of us make mistakes orally in using these verbs, probably not as much as in the past. Also some dialectical usages that are locally preserved.