If WW3 kicked off, and you were forced to enlist, do you think you'd cope?

[BaubleTheLumpOfCoal]

I 100% wouldn't.

I've looked at the army website and the fitness levels they require alone are way above my baseline level (out of breath when running up stairs )

I'm very small and weigh 6 and a half stone, so would probably be a liability to my fellow troops.

How do you think you'd fare?

I'd be useless, I'd cry immediately and hide. I'm fairly fit but very puny, they could throw me at things as a decoy maybe?! 😜

@MissChananderlerbong Thank you to you and your DP!
Did you meet whilst in the RAF?

If they didn't send mothers maybe there would be a sudden rise in pregnancies!

DS1 is a soldier so I know exactly what it takes and there's no way I'd be able to do it now, I'm disabled, or when I was 18 tbh. He's at the gym every day without fail and goes for a rum most days. He's just gone back to work today after Christmas leave and the only day he didn't do any fitness was Christmas Day.

DH is 54 and still in the RAF. He doesn't do the same fitness test as DS1 but I still couldn't pass that.

We have dual nationality and years ago our eldest faced national service and the country going to war. It was terrifying, I can’t explain his fear or mine. A soft studious boy, normally while at uni the ‘service’ was more like a scouts division on campus so nothing to comment on.

Even though we chose to relocate again and a way out was found it wrecked his education and chances leaving his course at the end and he never really got his act together in the same way.

I'd be crap I'm a wuss!

Ds is autistic and so cannot join any armed forces but wonder if they'd relax that rule as well?

I'd be hoping not and that I'd be exempt as his carer.

He be fantastic as intelligence though. He has a brain like a sponge

My absolute best effort for 2km is 15 minutes so that would need relaxing a bit.

I'm useless at throwing. If by some miracle I did manage the distance it would be straight up in the air rather than in any useful direction.

Tbh I've got a bit of a problem with authority and don't appreciate being shouted at so I don't think I would make it through basic training.

Miriel my ds also has hereditary spastic paraparasis. So I don't think they want him for long expeditions across deserts. He can swim miles using pull though so maybe the navy will have him

I don’t think they would want me... blind in one eye, heart problems and have a chronic connective tissue disorder which means I basically fall apart regularly. So no, don’t think I’d do too well!

I'm reasonably fit but not sure I'd pass the physical test. I'm also 20 years too old.

No, not unless they wanted people whose only fitness skill is they could walk 8 miles, slowly, pushing a pram, who does not like running, getting wet, mud, wind, being hot, carrying weights, rain and is scared of loud noises and fireworks - and does not get the idea of perseverance when she doesn't like doing something. I like a bath every morning and my own hairdryer. I can't bear camping, or insects and am vegetarian. And I don't share sleeping spaces with anyone but DH and definitely don't share toilets.

Apart from that - and my dreadful eyesight - I am up for it.

Like a pp I’d be a cook. Too old and unfit to be any use in combat.

They will try to bring down the NHS, national grid, plastic money transactions and I understand they have form for changing chemicals in water treatment systems.

DH has just said I would be good in the Home Guard.

Lulu you sound perfect, you're hired!

Mum's Army

How old do you have to be to join up? DH and I are 40.

I'd be cannon fodder. I'm a standard middle aged woman with no experience of warfare. They'd stick me in a bunker with a computer to piss around with my stockpile spreadsheet.

I would be shit. I could prob do the medicine ball throwing but that's it. I've done paintballing once and screamed the whole time so I def wouldn't cope with being in a warzone.
However I think I'd be great with organisational, make-do, chin-up type stuff so I'd stay at home and keep everyone going.

I'm too old and fat but could be put to use in the laundry or kitchens. I write well so might be useful in the communications side of things.

God no I'm too unfit. Possibly about 4 stone overweight for a start.

I do often get MIL on FB saying they need to bring back national service. My two boys with SEN would be cannon fodder if it was Ww1 or 2. My eldest would be shot as a deserter due to his mental health. MIL thinks it would cure all ( asd included no doubt for my ds) but they would be the first to die I dont doubt it. I often think about that on remembrance day etc.

Were not made of that stuff anymore generally.

I'd never be trusted with a gun, whatever the conditions.

I'd happily work with medics, or doing some kind of paperwork or languages work.

Otherwise I'd be literally labelled cannon fodder I guess.

I have RA so can barely walk most days, would be interesting if they got to the point of needing me. But I will say that both DH and I would refuse to go, as would most people I know. I have often wondered what would happen in this day and age with so many people being less patriotic and very anti war

I was in the Army much to my friends’ amusement. I absolutely hated all the running and physical side of it - amazed I was promoted and lasted 5 years. If called up now - I would have to be the tea lady.