I can't help but feel the 'our boys' tactic used by successive governments will rapidly come back to bite the in the arse when we are, for budgetary reasons, eventually obliged to agree to the formation of a pan-European army.

_________________
Soppy anti-British, pro-crime, anti-education, pro-immigration, anti-family nonentity

I'd be more disposed towards HfH if I could stop automatically linking it mentally with the Sun.

I'm getting that way myself. There're a lot of other charities doing at least as equally worthy work, but it's HFH that's getting all of the PR. And because that's how the narrative now works for the red-tops (cf. Missing White Girl Syndrome, Stephen K. Amos needing to wait for Lenny Henry to die, etc etc.), there won't be any call or any room for anybody else until HFH make a fairly major faux pas.

Which is why the HFH founders're in the Birthday Honours List.

I'm not saying that they're not doing sterling work, but I'm bored of not just the blanket rebranding of anyone in a uniform as a hero (saved only by the fact that the word is devalued every time someone's described with it for kicking a ball), but the way that this one organisation fixated on doing that is being held up at the expense of others.

_________________
"If the past really is a foreign country, I'm surprised that 'The Daily Mail' would want to live there.” - Roger Quimbly

There is something very nasty not far underneath the surface of a lot of the armed forces reverence. We've had wars before, but never have the army in particular been regarded in such a way. I don't recall Falkands veterans marching around football grounds or freedoms of cities being giving after tours of duty in Ulster. The whole Wooton Basset scenario started out as a low-key act of remembrance; now it's as good as on the tourist circuit. And while I've no doubt there are many decent and sincere people raising funds for service personnel, the whole thing seems bound up in some sort of xenophobic, macho baggage. I don't know, but maybe the twisted "can't be English in your own country anymore" mentality sees HfH as a way of being able to fly 'their' flag in defiance of the PC brigade.

Guilt?

As I've said before, the Wootton Bassett thing also undermines support in wars. Can you imagine the First World War lasting very long if all those bodies from the Somme had been flown in to wherever and been broadcast live to the public? It also clouds the issues when you try and post cool, statistical analysis of the number killed, with the shrill "TRY TELLING THAT TO THE PEOPLE AT WOOTTON BASSETT YOU UNCARING BASTARD" cries meeting it every time you do it.

It's just further Americanisation, they always bring their dead home, whereas the British have generally buried them where they fell (hence the large numbers of graves in France and Belgium).

I recently posted on another forum that I thought soldiers weren't deserving of quite the deification they recieve (although I did stress that I still thought they deserved some praise for bravery at least), the response I got you'd have thought I'd suggested every members mother was a c*nt. I even got death threats. I mean FFS.

_________________
"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)

Guilt.

I think the biggest problem is the lack of a direct aim or goal within the current conflicts 'our boys' are involved in. People feel that young lives are just being wasted trying to implement US and new Labour policy by dubious methods, even if in the long term Afganistan and Iraq do become more stable.

At least with the other conflicts mentioned there was a clear objective, stop the German occupation of Europe and kick the Argentinians out of a British colony. With the present conflicts it just seems we are trying to push a very heavy rock up a very steep mountain by trying to kickstart democracy in two countries which don't really seem to want it

_________________
'Because we've reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us'

I don't think the sort of people we're talking about ever think too deeply about aims and directions.They just want an excuse to wave flags and abuse anyone who isn't white, British and laddish.

^^
Nail on head, Mr Mordon.

The current lionisation of the Army (and by extension the armed forces in general) is because their directness and candour (and the fact that they get shot at and blown up) is in stark contrast to the murkiness and duplicity of the politics behind Iraq and Afghanistan.

We need heroes and leaders, and in the cases of the World Wars, the Falklands, the Gulf War and even Northern Ireland, we had these on a political level (hell, enough Tory MPs and establishment figures found themselves directly in the firing line during the Troubles). The others all started off as Britain coming to the rescue of a smaller, defenceless nation or colony threatened by a tyrannical and oppressive conquering foe (or at least that's how the folk tale of events would record matters).

So while we pour opprobrium upon those who led us into these messes, we contrast that by heaping praise on "a bunch of (extra)ordinary guys and girls doing a horrible job without complaint because that's their job". Because it helps us sleep easier at night. Or as Malcolm suggested, to assuage our own guilt.

_________________
Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

This uber reverence for the armed forces is one of the most interesting modern phenomena to have been covered on here for a while.



I recall (obviously from what I've heard from documentaries. I'm not 120 years old or anything!) that the authorities at the time (WW1) were keen to downplay events of mass hysteria (that apparently did happen) lest it caused homefront morale to collapse. I have a HARD time imagining that this would have been different for part 2 of the World war saga as well. Though for the first one, I'm sure the censorship helped; and did - cover up the true extent of the casualties as well.

The "try telling that" is always the first sign that emotionalism has started to lead public opinion, and from that bad things can happen. Your death threat, for just having an opinion!! shows that.



Yeah a lot of xenophobes and bigoted idiots love riding the tailcoats of other peoples "glories". Gives them an excuse to indulge thier nationalism, with the added advantage of not requiring them to actually do any work, or undertake any effort to justify that feeling.

I remember a BNP leaflet that got posted through my door last year. It had the words "Agincourt" "D-Day" "The Somme" "Falklands" "Fought for in our blood! Fought in English Pride!" or something. No!! Other peoples blood, not yours!!

I'll just point out that I don't think most people who support HfH are like this. It is just a possible reason why unsavoury BNP types are drawn to this kind of thing.

Which is also why there's such a market for hooligan/hard man memoirs.

[derail]The thing about democracy is, in order for it to be installed and functional, a lot of other things have to be in place first: free speech/access to such speech (the right to free assembly, to read certain books etc.), policing by consent, a certain level of income that will remain such regardless of who is in charge (recessions notwithstanding), infrastructure. Democracies are by their nature slow to action- if you don't like a candidate it can be years before you can get rid of them, which isn't very helpful if you need the sewer system installed now for example. A dictator can just force a load of people to build one because he's sick of the damn smell. Without a functioning justice system and economic and social stability all you end up doing is choosing which arsehole is going to be buying mercedes and mansions with your money. [/derail]

_________________
Please note: this badger is up to date with her vaccinations. She did not give your cows TB, and as such anyone attempting to kill her will be tied to a chair naked, covered in jam and positioned over a nest of very angry ants.

Hmm. WW1 and body bags.
It was the general policy of the British Army of the time that casualties were buried in-theatre. Remember that until then most British casualties had been in India and Africa, so repatriating bodies simply wasn't possible - it would have been pretty hard from France, given that a lot of men died in no-man's-land and their bodies were never recovered. The remains that could be found were not suitable for return. Secondly, the British (unlike the Americans who concentrated bodies and buried families together) buried men who had fought together in common cemeteries close to where they fell.

Doubtless by 1915 the thought of the effect on morale of so many bodies being returned had occurred to the War Office, but they weren't really in a position to do anything different, and despite a few mavericks who had bodies brought back clandestinely from France (I don't think anywhere else) the public generally supported it. The numbers of dead were apparent to all; long lists were printed in the newspapers, both national and local. The soldiers were seen as brave men who had died doing their duty.

There was no attempt to hide the scale of the losses, and in fact the first-ever war documentary (The Battle of the Somme, 1916) showed dead British and Empire soldiers, and many wounded. This sort of candid presentation was not really seen again until the 60s.

The difference was that the population was convinced that the soldiers were performing a duty to the nation, and that they were making a necessary sacrifice.

I'd imagine come half three-quarter to four, the shrieks of righteous indignation regarding people attacking "our boys" will reach dog-only frequency.

Those uppity paddies expecting a shooting to be investigated were all obviously in the IRA anyway.