"Our brave lads who put personal issues below fighting and dying for this nation..."

Bollocks. Let's be honest.

Most people go into the forces for selfish career reasons, the money, the travel, the prestige, the power and most of all, the freedom to kill people without moral justification. Or punishment.

I couldn't agree with you more I met soldiers and when they tell what happend they glorify in who that killed and slept with.

I don't think many people would join for the money, particularly the squaddies. Many probably join for Macho reasons or to make themselves seem more "windswept and interesting" They probably feel that it makes them more attractive, "All the nice girls love a sailor or I like a man in Uniform" are common phrases. You never hear "All the nice girls love an Accountant".

funny how war does not count as murder and you can kill someone the same way and kill in cold blood same.

True many find the thought of violence fun,but not all.For many it's just a job,better than being a dole dosser.
My father did 5 years in the war,and he doesn't have a violent bone in him,either before or after.

Personally I prefer dole I don't want to be trained to kill. Glad we don't have National Service it be a choice not something we forced to do. Why should we kill, die or lose a limb just for the Queen ?

I've never been in the armed forces, and I wish there were no wars, but I must be honest and admit that if my life and family were threatened by a nasty invading force (like if I'd been a Jew in WW2 under sudden threat from the Nazis) I'd truly appreciate that there were soldiers prepared to put themselves between me and the enemy. I think we'd all appreciate them if in that situation. Easy to criticize when we are safe in our homes, well away from the danger.

Same with my grandfather. He would not have harmed a fly, but was proud to join up during WW2, but was not a career soldier and went back to working on the buses afterwards.

Can you imagine if there was a choice during WW2 and not conscription? We would either have been wiped out or have had a kind of Vichy Government run by Oswald Mosley. Hitler would regularly be popping over for holidays at his flat in Ducane Court.

Foz wrote:
Hitler would regularly be popping over for holidays at his flat in Ducane Court.

Nah im pretty sure hed be dead by now lol but point taken. the thing is war is sometimes a neccisary evil butb it should never be seen as glorious or as something to be proud of.

when it comes down to it if you have to defend your home by standing in front of it with a gun then its already to late

FatRat wrote:
when it comes down to it if you have to defend your home by standing in front of it with a gun then its already to late

So we shouldn't even bother to defend ourselves?

I think our troops should never have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, but I admire anyone who truly volunteers to fight for our defence.

When it comes down to it, if nobody had fought Hitler in WW2, many more millions of innocent people of all ages would have been slaughtered, just beacuse they were Jewish, Gypsy, or the wrong colour or religion. In fact, we did defend our homes with guns - but from the air. If not for the RAF we'd all be living in a totally different world where the imperfect are put to death.

Defend ourselves - yes.

Dispose of tyrants? Sometimes but only when the local population wants it, real evil is obvious (Hitler) and then - with intelligence please (SAS squad for Sadaam, not war on a giant scale).

And all this praise for "our boys"? Dangerous nationalistic nonsense.