please empty your brain below
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Well, better to venerate them than Jordan.
Debster | Homepage | 27.06.09 - 9:49 a.m. | #
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Well, I'd rather them than the celebrities and footballers to be honest. But I voiced the same opinion as yourself yesterday when I walked past all the tents and such next to City Hall.
Chz | Homepage | 27.06.09 - 9:51 a.m. | #
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A point of view I have a certain sympathy for, being no great fan of war.
However, if I have a rubbish day at work, I get shouted at by my boss; but if a squaddy has a rubbish day at work, they get killed.
For me, it seems a not unreasonable additional recognition of a mass industry with (relatively) low wages, exceptionally difficult working conditions and exposure to a higher risk that I could ever choose to cope with.
Henry | 27.06.09 - 10:09 a.m. | #
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Its purely right wing, working class jingoism, that's all it is.
Nobody stands and applauds a parade of nurses, doctors, teachers, working parents or charity sector secretaries, do they? Yet these unsung heroes and heroines keep life here in the UK ticking over day in, day out.
In a truly civilised society, there would be no need for soldiers.
Exit, Pursued by a Bear | Homepage | 27.06.09 - 11:22 a.m. | #
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Surely left wing countries like Russia and China have soldiers as well?
Debster | Homepage | 27.06.09 - 12:15 p.m. | #
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We are being taken down the path of the US whereby anyone who suggests the Armed Forces should not be in a particular place (eg Iraq) is tarred as 'unpatriotic'. Try to explain that it is the political decision to send them there and not the strategic decisions taken by the forces themselves that you are criticising and your message gets lost in a right-wing jingoistic mass of noise.
kenromford | 27.06.09 - 12:30 p.m. | #
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Read "Sex and War" by Malcolm Potts & Thomas Hayden.
Bina | 27.06.09 - 12:37 p.m. | #
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This post sums up my feelings as well. I can see nothing macho about war.
"In a truly civilised society, there would be no need for soldiers." I agree and someone wrote a song called 'Imagine' which promoted this idea too.
pop artist | 27.06.09 - 4:05 p.m. | #
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Couldn't agree more, and my view is more along the lines of Exit, Pursued by a Bear's.
Mark | Homepage | 27.06.09 - 6:33 p.m. | #
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I pretty much agree with the general view here, as well.
@ Henry, "However, if I have a rubbish day at work, I get shouted at by my boss; but if a squaddy has a rubbish day at work, they get killed.
For me, it seems a not unreasonable additional recognition of a mass industry with (relatively) low wages, exceptionally difficult working conditions and exposure to a higher risk that I could ever choose to cope with"...
... I think the operative word there is 'choose'
Even when it's a last option (say, because of a lack of any other available employment) joining the forces is, at the end of the day, a matter of free choice.
Hmmm, as for songs, I think my pick here would be Drafted by Frank Zappa 
RogerW | 27.06.09 - 8:07 p.m. | #
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Patriotism,last refuge of the scoundrel
First excuse of the cretin
jerym | 27.06.09 - 9:56 p.m. | #
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If there were no armed forces there would be a lot more people living off the state though... It's a bloody well paid job for people who leave our 'education system' without having 'achieved'. The problem to solve, of course, is what to do with them otherwise... which involves rethinking the 'education' that is offered in this country.
But, I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who gets killed (or has a family member killed) in war these days. There is no need for war and without people (see above) signing up for it there wouldn't be able to be any.
There are other ways of solving conflicts. Such as minding our own business and not imposing our own 'values' on other countries by going to war with them on pretexts.
What a waste of money war is.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 28.06.09 - 10:33 a.m. | #
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Hello Blue Witch,welcome to planet Earth hope you enjoy your stay
jerym | 28.06.09 - 11:30 a.m. | #
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It all smacks of look-at-me heart-on-sleevery on the part of tabloid editors and people who feel the need to suck up to them: and about as genuine.
http://www.genealogyworld.net/bo...er/
kipling.html
http://www.love-poems.me.uk/
pudn...\\_for\\_johnny.htm
Autolycus | Homepage | 28.06.09 - 12:42 p.m. | #
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jerym's comment perfectly sums up what I was saying; while there are people around who don't believe that a no-war world is possible, and (even passively) aggressively state that others are idiots/wrong, conflict continues. Ho hum.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 29.06.09 - 9:44 a.m. | #
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It was at Chatham Dockyard, where you usually have to pay to get in, so it was a nice 'freebie'. Nothing more than a huge recruitment drive masquerading as a pat on the back for the armed forces, & veterans.
But at that price I could hardly complain... 
Rodders | Homepage | 02.07.09 - 2:56 p.m. | #
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