The Red Baron wrote:andy_g wrote:RB, i really don't want to disrespect your nephew or yourself, but a career soldier is a career soldier, regardless of background. they do their job with their eyes open, knowing that they will have to follow orders and that those orders will at some time be to go and kill or be killed. anyone who joins the army thinking otherwise, that it is just a decent everyday job like any other is badly mistaken.
i spent a long long time unemployed myself, and know people who joined the army as a way out of that. give me the street corner any time. i have a lot more respect for someone who finds their own way out of that, their own way to make a living than someone who just goes and feeds the governments need for grunts to do its dirty work.
Andy I understand your point now.All armies do the dirty work of governments.It is true anybody entering a recruiting office and enlisting does so with their eyes open.Should they be called upon to go to war they cant complain.They might hold political views,about the legitimacy of the war but as a member of the armed forces they have no choice,they made that choice when they enlisted.
We have all seen families of soldiers killed in Iraq on the television,while this is very sad[some might say they shouldnt have been there,for me that is a different debate]there sons/husbands new the risks when they took the job on.
All Iam saying is I respect the people in the armed forces.They
cant choose which wars they fight.Take the members of the bomb squad,how many of these men have been maimed and killed trying to protect members of the general public.During the firefighters dispute it was members of the Armed forces who attended fires and traffic accidents.
Today two women police officers have been shot while on duty,one tragically died.I am sure a service of rememberance
will be held for this WPC.and rightly so, a service were friends,colleagues and family can take a moment to remember.
This is why I buy a poppy,to remember the members of the armed forces who have died on duty,whether it be on some battlefield far from home,or fighting a fire in the next street.