MoD IS ROCKED BY E-BLUEY BACKLASH
War widow leads anger as MoD scraps vital electronic letter link to UK’s frontline troops
A HEARTBROKEN war widow last night led a chorus of military families and former top brass voicing their fury over the scrapping of the system which provides frontline soldiers with letters from loved ones.
Jacqui Thompson, whose husband Gary was killed by a Taliban bomb in Afghanistan, accused the Ministry of Defence of abandoning troops and their families by cutting the online letter service known as E-Blueys to save just £1million, as revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week.
Veterans and Lord West, the former Government Minister and First Sea Lord, have demanded a rethink to save the service that prints out cherished letters for troops to take with them to read for comfort and to ease the pain of separation.
The system was praised by Prince Charles as boosting morale while his son Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan.
Last night, Ms Thompson spoke of her ‘sense of loss’ over the scrapping of E-Blueys, saying: ‘I wrote to Gary every day. It was my way of supporting him and keeping him in touch with our home life. You cannot put a price on the emotional and morale boost the E-Blueys give not only to our military personnel but also their families.’
The MoD has defended the move on the basis that troops and their families are using social media and wi-fi services rather than E-Blueys.
Yet the first of hundreds of British troops who deployed to the Russian frontline in Estonia this weekend have been ordered not to use any local wi-fi over fears their phones and computers could be hacked by President Putin’s intelligence services. The E-Bluey service offers security because troops and their loved ones access a password-protected website, or smartphone app.
Their electronic messages are then printed out at the frontline so soldiers can carry them with them in their backpacks. Soldiers reply using the same system and the letters are printed in the UK. While the MoD has pledged to reinvest the E-Bluey running costs to pay for top security wi-fi provision, Lord West said there was something special about receiving actual letters from loved ones.
‘The great joy of the E-Bluey is that it gives troops some reassuring words from their families to have in their pocket or in a backpack, in particular when they are unable to use their phones or laptops,’ he said.
‘In the middle of battle, you don’t get your computer out to read emails from family. So I hope the MoD puts a system into place which gives servicemen and women something tangible. But I fear the E-Bluey service will prove hard to match.’
Former Royal Signals sergeant Paula Scully, 40, who served in Iraq and Bosnia, has launched a petition to save E-Blueys on change.org. She said last night: ‘E-Blueys are a lifeline for the thousands of soldiers currently serving overseas.
‘They are a simple, secure and most importantly quick way for anxious families and friends to communicate with their loved ones and help ease the separation.
‘It angers me that the MoD scraps E-Blueys when the other options they provide for troops and families to
speak are unworkable. Soldiers are not always near to a base and access to wi-fi is not always easy – and social media shouldn’t be used on operations for security reasons.’
British troops who arrived in Estonia this weekend have been ordered to use a top security MoD internet server for communications with their families and browsing the internet, such is the concern about the threat of Russian hackers.
At the peak of its popularity, troops and loved ones were sending 100,000 E-Blueys every month. But since thousands of British military personnel returned from the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the number has dropped to just 3,000, according to MoD figures. The service is due to end on March 31.
An MoD spokesperson said: ‘The welfare of our people is very important to us and we are committed to making sure they can keep in touch with their families. That’s why we are updating our service and reinvesting E-Bluey funds into ways of communicating more suited to our modern Armed Forces.’