The following story from the Daily Telegraph is reproduced under the Fair Comment provisions of the Copyright Act.
The SAS is facing the greatest cuts since the end of the Second World War with veterans being forced out and a Territorial Army regiment set to close.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 1:14PM BST 29 Aug 2010
The Director of Special Forces, a major general who cannot be named, will meet with reserve SAS soldiers this week to inform them that their services are no longer required.
Already more than 40 veteran SAS men have been given their marching orders after the Army said it can no longer afford to pay them.
While British special forces are seen as one of the greatest global assets Britain has to offer and are particularly coveted by the US, they are expensive accounting for an estimated £2 billion out of the £37 billion MoD budget.
However, like the rest of defence the SAS has had to make cuts and getting rid of the “old and the bold” and part of the TA is seen as the best solution.
As a result of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, under which the Ministry of Defence has to make cuts of between 10 and 20 per cent, the SAS will also lose either 21 SAS or 23 SAS, its two TA battalions who also contribute to the war in Afghanistan.
“Sadly the director (DSF) is going round this week to talk to people because it looks likely we are going to lose a reserve regiment,” an SAS source said. “This is modern times and all we can really afford is the fighting young blades who deploy on operations.
“DSF is doing the sensible thing and is looking at them in the eye and saying the pot is this big and here are the options and this is why.
“It very unfortunate and inevitably will take something away from UK special forces but that is the reality of it.”
There has also been outcry that the SAS is losing its most experienced men who have served on operations since September 11th.
Special forces troops are given special exemption to serve beyond their contracted 22 years as recognition of their contribution to national security. The system is called “continuance” and the troops are found jobs on operations desks or backroom work.
But with defence cuts and more numbers of men staying in the regiment as a result of the poor economy the older troops have been told to move on.
The decision has been criticised as “ludicrous” by SAS insiders although the men have accepted that “their time is up”.
Some of the soldiers, who are in the 40s, have been involved in some of the toughest fighting against the Taliban in 2001 and Iraqi insurgents from 2003.
It is believed that the reductions were ordered before the current government came into power.
Throughout the Army there are currently moves to get rid of “dead wood” as it has reached nearly 100 per cent manning for the first time since the last war.
A further time bomb facing commanders is the potential dismissal of more than 4,000 badly wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan who will never be able to deploy on the front line.
Former SAS officer Colonel Clive Fairweather said: "I'd hang on to the special forces, to every bit of experience they've got, even if they are grey-haired, old dogs – it's what's in their heads that's important. I would really fight hard to keep those guys."
But Col Tim Collins, a former infantry commander who served in the SAS, said it had come to the point where “the experience they bring is no longer needed on operational tasks”.
“At the age of 45 or 50 you are no longer swinging through windows dishing out death.
“The regiment is a young man’s game and in fairness the old and bold have had a good run.”
The regular SAS was disbanded at the end of the Second World War but reformed to meet fight the Malayan Emergency in the early Fifties.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7970345/SAS-lose-veterans-and-TA-regiment.html
