to show my support for the Armed Forces

[CuntPuffin]

Following yesterday's atrocious incident, I chose to wear a Help for Heroes shirt today. I have just been told off by a colleague, saying it was insensitive and inappropriate.

Bearing in mind I am ex-force as is my husband, I disagree and am proud to show my support for our Armed Forces. And told him this in fairly clear words.

Have I got this really wrong, or has he?

Crowler - "
Sheesh this continual parroting of "respect the men and women who are defending you!" OK sure, but guess what - they're not defending us at the moment! The military is slowing eating away at our freedoms and safety by the day."

Really, so we disband the forces and then what, magically create an army to save us from invasion from an aggressor. It does not work like that. It takes years & years of specilaist training to be at the level our forces are. Also how are our forces slowly eating away at our freedoms and safety? i for one sleep soundly knowing how good are forces are.

I don't think Muslims or black people are going to be reacting negatively to H4H T-shirts per se.

Maybe not Eldritch, and I do hope not. But I would not have liked to be a Muslim walking home through Woolwich last night while the EDL 'showed their respect.'

I suppose what I'm trying to say is what I said in my first post - it's a workplace. What if tomorrow someone 'shows their respect' by wearing a full union flag shirt?

And threesy FGS. Respect does not equal slavish devotion, or sentimentality. Our forces do a good job. I respect that. Doesn't mean I don't get to question their actions or purpose.

I agree. I am as appalled by the murder of the young man in Woolwich as everyone else is. However I have never thought someone is a hero simply because they have chosen to join the armed forces. I don't support them or not support them any more than I did yesterday morning.

However I am so sad for the poor young man, and very disturbed by the hatred the murder has already provoked.

Can you answer my question to you, spacefrogg1?

I was brought up in Northern Ireland and so that has probably altered my perception of these 'heroes'. They are not defending us btw if you want to be pedantic Crowler is correct. I feel nothing but sadness for the victim of this awful attack but the subsequent nationalist BS is just as dangerous.

Nelly. The soldiers are "forced" to Afghanistan, etc because crucially, they enlisted in the army! Just curious, how many soldiers do you know who object to the multiple conflicts we're currently engaged in?

Spacefrogg. I think what you're saying is that these wars are practice for defending our borders if necessary. Am I correct?

The flag thing has changed in recent years, thank God.

Time was you knew to give anyone wearing the Union or St. George's flag a wide berth (I'm bi-racial, and speaking from personal experience). Now, lots of perfectly nice ordinary people do it, including black and Asian people. There has been a reclaiming.

Mostly, there is a kind of bigot-radar that means you generally manage avoid the people you need to avoid. It's more nuanced than 'Oh, you're wearing our national symbol, you must be a racist.'

whats your question? SkylerWhite

spacefrogg1

You stated: 'Yes we are not heroes but you would be the first to scream if they dispanded the Forces and left you to fend for yourself.'

I replied: 'Really? How do you know that?'

Crawler the wars are not practice but real wars where people on both sides are loosing lifes. Now it will be very hard for people like you to understand the work the forces are doing in these countries because you only have the mdia to go off. Now i served in Iraq in 2003, I crossed the boarder with all of my commerades wondering the the fuck we were there. Whilst i was there i helped people open schools, open Oil Fields, help people who have broken down etc.

Now the soldiers do not choose to go on deployments but when we are there we do it beliving we are doing it for the right reasons.

SkylerWhite - because i have seen it before. if our country was invaded can you honstly say you would welcome the foreign army with open arms or would you expect to defend your Country?

If opening schools and helping people were all the army were doing in Iraq, I would be 100% behind them. Sadly it isn't.

Not sure how you can talk about skyler defending our country when you must be fully aware that in Iraq, you are that foreign army.

OK sure, but guess what - they're not defending us at the moment!

I absolutely and utterly disagree with this. In fact I couldn't disagree more!

There's a famous saying:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf

Do you really think you'd live the life you are living if it were not for the fact soldiers are ready to defend us if needed? They don't have to be literally fighting a war repelling invaders to be defending us. The armed forces biggest job is to act as a deterrent.

Soldiers sign up to defend us with their lives if necessary. We (via our elected government) send them abroad to fight wars in our name to defend our interests. Now I understand that a lot of people me included are dubious about if these wars are really in our interests. But that's besides the point.

The soldiers go because we've sent them. They are doing the job we've sent them out to do. And they die because we've sent them to their deaths.

I think that deserves a bit of respect? Don't you?

We're not glorifying the armed forces recently. We're just showing more respect than we once have. If you go to America, the level of respect for service personnel is on another level. In comparison we don't do nearly enough.

Spacefrogg, you've just nicely sidestepped my point entirely.

You said:

Really, so we disband the forces and then what, magically create an army to save us from invasion from an aggressor. It does not work like that. It takes years & years of specilaist training to be at the level our forces are.

(Note, I never suggested dissolving the armed forces).

So then I asked you if you viewed these (real, obviously) wars as practice for keeping the armed forces sharp in case we're invaded.

Where have you seen people screaming over disbanded militaries?

Y'see, I think that's amazing spacefrogg, genuinely, but I also think having people to take my rubbish away, and people to give me penicillin if I need it is pretty amazing.

I just think the extra emotion that some people attach to the armed forces and not to other vital jobs is a bit strange. (I don't think you attaching emotion to it is strange, obviously, because it is your experience).

It's disturbing because it seems to lead those people into basically thinking that everyone who doesn't agree with them must be suspect (or in the words of someone above, "a twat".)

spacefrogg1 you have seen it before? When? I didn't realise the British Army had been disbanded in the last 100 years...nor that the United Kingdom been invaded...

'Rough men', niceguy?

Are you serious?

I wouldn't hurry to be proud of 'rough men' if I were you. And the men and women I know who are or have been in the army wouldn't thank you for that description.

I agree we couldn't simply disband the military right this instant. However, I don't see how that translates into making wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ok. I just don't. If you think it does, you are effectively saying that killing innocent civilians is the price we pay for having a military ready to defend us in the (currently, unlikely) event of an attack.

I don't think anyone really believes that!

And I agree with madbus.

Niceguy2. How is not agreeing with the war beside the point? That's exactly the point. I like having an armed forces to defend the country, and if that's ALL they were doing, I would respect the institution much like I do say, the NHS for providing health care.

The "rough men" quotation has been round for a century or so, usually attributed to George Orwell, though it's a paraphrase, not his exact words.

Although to be fair to spacefrog (a bit) it is NATO strategy to meet actual or potential threats outside the NATO area, the idea being that wars are so destructive we aim never to have to fight another war on our own territory, by taking the fight to the enemy first. That means fighting more wars in far-flung places, not fewer.

Which I understand as a strategy, without agreeing that it justifies the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

LRDtheFeministDragon - did not excape my mind that i flew in an aeroplane and landed in another coutry.

When i was in Iraq and LIBERATED Basra we had an impromtue parade by the locals for freeing them up from a terrible regime. People came out cheering and clapping us. i had a beautiful little girl approach me who was about 5 offering me food and water. That was when i realised that no matter what the reason for going to war was, we were wanted by the Iraqi people.

YANBU! Wearing it as an act of solidarity with the poor victim makes sense. Much better to respond to this horrible act with a decent response such as promoting a charity that helps the injured. Anyone who has a problem with this is being ridiculous imo.

auntie - it wasn't the authenticity I had an issue with, it was someone citing it in support of the current situation i found odd.

space - erm, ok then. Good for you. I'm sure it was lovely to be treated as a hero.

I don't quite see what this has to do with it? Do you honestly not get that the army killed a lot of people? That wars do kill people? That some of us get concerned about this?

You can kid yourself all you like that those dead people's last thought was 'thank god, brilliant, I'm so glad there was no way of getting rid of our regime other than a war', but it's not so.

I get that you may feel you were doing something nasty that had to be done, but I am really uncomfortable with you describing all of this as if you were in the Red Cross instead of the army.

Oh yes, adulation of the NHS gets on my tits as well.