War, conscription & fitness

[petitetiti]

I have no idea how fit people were the last time there was military conscription in the UK. I don't think even a small fraction of the 18 to 50 (?) are nearly fit enough. What happened in Ukraine? What would happen in the UK? It would take YEARS to get this generation fit again.

@Zaapp this exactly this!!!!

That's generally how it works. In the states, all males have to register for the draft when they turn 18. During war, they start with the enlisted forces, then they pull in reserves and can call up former servicemen, especially with certain specialties. After that it's a lottery. During Vietnam they used birthdays, and if your number came up you went. (Or fled to Canada or shot your foot or cut off your trigger finger)

I will be encouraging my son to bloody disappear!

It depends how you look at fitness. The average person who is “fit” now is infinitely fitter than their equivalent during WW1 or 2 but what we (probably) have are far more overweight people now. You can be overweight and fit in fairness but it’s obviously not always the case.

Conscription on a mass scale is highly unlikely to happen however during WW2 conscription and evacuation highlighted just how unhealthy large swathes of the population were.

We have German family

According to them the youth of Germany are in training - gym use and such has soared since Ukraine was invaded

40-60% volunteer recruits were rejected on health grounds for the Boer Wars- its one of the reasons state intervention started under the Liberals from 1906. The beginnings of the welfare state as it were. 15 years later WW1 started and Britain got volunteers then conscripted, same as 25 odd years after that for WW2. I doubt these men were as fit as professional soldiers given their very short training.

Do you genuinely believe that those called up in the late 40s and 50s were fit, able and willing? I am pretty sure that's not true, however misty eyed politicians (who didn't experience it) get about it...

I think this is actually a great idea! I don't know if the MOD recruits from the commonwealth. But we should have something in place like 5 years of military service and you get to become a British citizen.

I don’t know if it’s related but my husband has suddenly decided to lose a bit of weight and up his fitness levels.

Don't tell him Beaverbridge !

That's interesting... so has my husband!

Perhaps all the young fit Men arriving on dinghys should have to do 3 years conscription to become British citizens.

And the OP's comment about the commonwealth.

Bingo!! I thought we'd get to a post like this about 3/4 posts in! Still relatively early nonetheless. To really understand how the general population view refugees and migrants you need to dig into subject matters like this. People almost always reveal themselves and quite happily so because not many other areas allow for such crude analysis.

Yes it's crazy how many more bloody threads are there going to be.

It’s really interesting. I’m in a mostly middle class area of SE England and I’d say 80%+ of my dd’s secondary school age peers would be fit enough to serve based on their health now - but they are mostly not yet 16. There are some with disabilities and other health issues eg coeliac, asthma, diabetes. But for the most part everyone is in good shape, taking part in lots of extracurricular sports/activities free at school or in out of school clubs, walking home from school etc.

So does something happen in late teens - a mass decline in fitness? Why is that?

My dd just today got the news she starts cadets next week and she’s super keen. I don’t really understand why she would lose interest in staying fit and active as she gets older. I was actually the opposite- hated sport until I was 18 when I took up kayaking and then rowing and cycling, then got hugely into the gym in my late 20s.

What am I missing? If our younger generation really areas hopeless as this thread makes them out to be then where are we going wrong? Maybe this accounts for the MH problems - people need the endorphins and energy and well-being that more physical activity promotes?

Should something requiring conscription occur I do hope all the hitherto 'Get outta my country' types remain as vociferous in that view.

Always a lot of it around in January. Very common New Year Resolution!

Yes there are Commonwealth Soldiers

And it's taken decades of long, hard campaigning to sort out nationality issues fairly

For me it was when I passed my driving test, I went from walking everywhere to driving to McDonalds on the way home.

Nope, only good as cannon fodder clearly. Some things haven't changed since the last world War that's for sure.

Unfortunately, like most of the big institutions, the Armed forces have been captured. Its all gone pink and fluffy now and one of the reasons why many are signing off, including a close family member of mine.
The RAF got themselves into bother fairly recently by proclaiming that their recruitment processes would exclude white males.
They shot themselves in the foot , if you'll pardon the pun.
Half the recruits have mental health issues without going anywhere near a war zone.
My family member is glad to be out of it

I can't see many people volunteering to fight for this country. You can't have it both ways. You can't vilify a nation's heroes, fill the bookshops with books attacking its history, teach the young to feel ashamed of their past, make the whole idea of Englishness and Britishness toxic, and then expect the young to fight for you. What would they be fighting for? What would they be defending?

My great grandfather was twice wounded in WW1, and my grandfather joined the RAF after the fall of Dunkirk, but they lived in a country that still felt like a country. It had massive faults, and in many ways was an awful place to live, but at least people had a sense of pride and belonging. They knew who they were. Orwell wrote that a nation is like a family – it has its collective traumas and its shared memories. That just isn't there any more. The sneering Oxbridge liberals have got what they wanted. They've pretty much destroyed this nation's pride and identity. And they will have to live with the consequences.

I don't understand the focus on sons avoiding concription, surely daughters will be conscripted too? Women have been allowed on the frontline in close ground fighting roles for a while now and in frontline support/medical roles for much longer.

@JaneyGee 👏👏👏👏

3 out of my 4 grandparents served in WW2 and the other grandparent took in refugees. It scarred all of them in different ways. But like a PP mentioned, there was a huge sense of national pride and belonging. Britain is now a mass cultural experiment rather than a country.