Not happy my 13 year 's class old had recruitment presentation from armed forces today

[isitmyturn]

DS1 had a talk by someone from the Navy today. My gut reation is to be horrified with visions of my PFB going off to war.
I had no idea that "careers" advice started so soon and in this form?
He's just into year 8, very academic but worried that he doesn't know what he wants to do career wise. DH and I have tried to tell him not to worry, just work hard for now and he doesn't need to make a career choice until he's older.

Not read whole thread but just wanted to point out that children can join the Cadets (of all 3 services) at age 12/year 8. Probably why such presentations begin at this age?

No, if this was WW2 I would enlist, to be honest.

But joining the army professionally means giving up your right to make a moral judgement on the particular conflict you are going to fight in. You are agreeing to do what you are told, where you are told, when you are told regardless of your views on the morality of the situation.

And if you refuse you are considered a traitor. What if Hitler is in your own country? Would you be happy to have your child in the forces then?

But ib your talking as though the army is the only part of the armed forces- it isn't. The army, raf and navy are not just a 'killing machine' but the very core of our countries defence system and play a part in preventing terrorist attacks and other national crisis. They also come to the rescue if there is a disaster, natural or otherwise. What about mountain and air sea rescue? Most people in the armed forces will never be directly responsible for killing people- this is the job of our regiments and they know full well what the job requires before they go into it.The taliban are a very real threat to our society too, so I don't think they are in Afghan for no reason.
Most of the other trades in the forces are very transferable to civilian life once they leave such as admin,medics,air ops,intelligence- these people aren't on the frontline!

Very good point ib.

I can't get over the fact that killing someone intentionally is murder, I genuinely don't understand why it isn't murder during war.

I also don't understand why we bother bringing our kids up to believe that violence is not the way to solve conflicts when violence seems to be the major way we do solve conflicts (on an international scale).

Whenever I ask people this they say it is much more complicated than this. Is it?

"Would you be happy to have your child in the forces then?"

Absolutely. This isn't based, you understand, solely on what I think the Army/Forces might be like or on some "Dulce et decorum est.." type patriotism but on personal experience.

I met my husband at Uni and was engaged to him as he went through his MSc and his training at RMAS. We've now been married for ten years and I've seen him develop from an intelligent and confident young man into an assured, intelligent and deeply professional soldier and officer. It has been the making of him and shows that he is exactly where he should be in life.

He has a sense of duty and responsibility towards others - those under his command and those outwith it. He puts others before himself always and firmly believes in the Sandhurst motto "Serve to Lead". He has moral and physical courage, personal and professional integrity and a strong conviction that he does a very necessary and vital job.

How could I not admire a man like that?

And, I'm happy to say, he is not the exception. In my time as an Army wife, I've met many men and women from all ranks who are cut from the same cloth as my husband. Of course, there are people who are not like that, and there are people who are not as capable or as committed - everyone is different after all.

All I'm saying is that my husband measures himself as a man by the job he does and how well he does it. It's provided us with a secure and strong community within which to raise our sons and given us plenty of opportunities in life.

Of course the job has its unpleasant aspects and the nature of the Armed Foces is to defend and attack in the interests of the country. I have no wish to gloss over that side of things and I am fully aware of some of the things my husband and men like him have seen and done. We've been at the funerals of friends who died in Afghanistan and Iraq and I live with the knowledge that until my husband comes home from his current operational tour, the next knock on the door could be to tell me that he's badly wounded or killed.

Weighing all that in the balance, I would still say that the Forces are a good career for someone with the right personailty and temperament and I would be happy for either of my two sons to serve.

I'd say it is hottiebear. Of course no one wants there to be any wars or killing, nobody wants that. But if, as a country, we werent't prepared to do that, we'd be pretty weak in our defence and a big target for terrorism and invasion. There are too many evil people in the world who are power mad for there to never be wars (the taliban,that pyscho in Korea who keeps testing nuclear weapons etc )

'is that the Armed Forces target their recruitment talks - they go for schools in areas of high unemployment and deprivation. So incredibly cynical.'

ANd for many of those young men joining the Forces could be the best thing that ever happens to them, not withstanding Afghanistan. For some of them it could be the first time there's ever been anyone properly guiding them.

What saddens me more is what happens when they leave the army and how we treat them then. Shamefully.

Of course it's complicated, hottiebear. In an ideal world, there would be no wars, no murder, no cruel and unjust behaviour.

Unfotunately, human nature is complicated and when the human nature becomes tied up with power and government and ideology, then fundamental goodness and morality can get lost in the mix - hence wars and massacres and global conflicts.

I wish we were more enlightened and I wish that there were no need for military power but it is an inescapable part of the the human condition.

Well said jcscot

"What saddens me more is what happens when they leave the army and how we treat them then. Shamefully."

It has to be said that improvements are being made - unfortunately the government is (shamefully, IMO) rather stingy with its funding for such and issue but there are some excellent military charities that do wonderful and valuable work.

I agree that more needs to be done regarding soldiers who have had to leave the army due to injury or being pyscholigically scarred, but the majority of people leaving the services after serving their time recieve great bonuses and a good pension, and are well supported back into civilian life.

My FIL is involved in one of those charities and it is good. But I think the government gets off lightly.

OK, I've just done a quick google and...

Iceland doesn't have an army. It has the highest rate of literacy in the world.
Lichtenstein doesn't either, and they have spent all their defence money on education and have the 10th best education system in the world as well as one of the highest standards of living.
Others are Monaco or Andorra.

Apparently, common characteristics of these places are that they are wealthy, with a high standard of living, low crime rates and long life expectancies which is what happens when money is spent on education, hospitals, research facilities, social welfare and culture rather than war and destruction.

So these places are ripe for terrorism and invasion because they are undefended but it doesn't seem like anyone bothers them. Is that because they are minding their own business and are not invading or attacking innocent civillians of other countries, like we are, or is it because of another reason?

This is a genuine question by the way, I'm not trying to be facetious.

and iceland is now practically bankrupt after the banking crisis.

Of course killing people is not the ideal, but what alternative is there? Sit down and have a cuppa with the talliban? These people are primitive in the extreme. They don't listen to reason - the answer is kill or be killed. It really is that simple.

I often wonder if I'm BU for being so irritated that ds's school do not allow anything camo patterned on the basis that it is ?war-related? (I quote). Aside from the fact that naturalists and whatnot are likely to wear camoflage I wonder what message that sends about mummy/daddy?s job to the dc whose parents are in the Forces.
Anyway, I digress. YANBU for it worrying you but a career in the Navy (at least it wasn?t the Army) can be a darned good one and it?s good that your dc has had it flagged up as an option. I wouldn?t expect them to be showing all the terrible sides to a life in the Forces but if your dc shows an interest, you?re free to show them all the documentaries and news reports you like in order to help them to make an informed choice. I know I would.

jcscot "Unfotunately, human nature is complicated and when the human nature becomes tied up with power and government and ideology, then fundamental goodness and morality can get lost in the mix - hence wars and massacres and global conflicts"

Do you think that will always be the way? Are wars, massacres and global conflicts inevitable for ever more? What do you think we would have to do to make this not the case, if there is indeed anything we could do?

wannaBe do you mean that if Iceland had an army then all their money wouldn't have been tied up in banking? Is that not to do with perhaps not having all your eggs in one basket, rather than having anything to do with not having an army?
And I don't know what the alternative is, but if we don't talk about alternatives, reasons, whys and hows then how will we ever make things better?

hottie in the unlikely even that Monaco or Andorra were invaded I'd imagine the French and Italian forces would be there like a shot (no pun intended). They don't need armed forces.

'These people are primitive in the extreme. They don't listen to reason - the answer is kill or be killed. It really is that simple.'

With attitudes like that, there is no question there will always be wars. What an absolutely horrible comment.

But she was talking about the taliban and they are extremists- that's what they are! It's not a horrible comment ...it's the truth. You can't reason with terrorist organisations!

There is nothing to stop you putting your point of view forward

show your dc this here

Have a look on the forces websites yourself to see the diversity of occupations available.

there has been war and conflict since time began and there will always be war and conflict. Conflict is essentially a primitive instinct - even in the animal kingdom you will see conflict between prides of lions/monkeys/chimps/other animals, and even between different species ie a leopard will kill the cubs of a lion and vice versa because doing so ensures greater possibility for the survival of the leopard... etc. The difference with humans is that we have the inteligence to bring a new dimention into our conflict ie the gun and the bomb, and the result is that our conflict is perpitrated on a much wider scale. But the principal is the same.

Ib These are people who do not believe in music, do not allow girls or women to be educated, who execute women if they are raped - what would you call them then, misunderstood? You cannot change the mindset of people like that, if you are going to afghanistan to change the lives of the people there, you know that in order to do so you have to drive the taliban out by force, because they cannot be reasoned with. That's not horrible - it's a fact.

ib i'm about "primitive", but we're talking about the Taliban here. If anyone would like to come up with a better adjective I'd be interested.

why though. No education for women, no music fgs, if a woman is raped she is the guilty party and is executed, what is that if not primitive?

I am somewhat that there are people on here defending the taliban!

wannabe, lol @ "misunderstood"

"If anyone would like to come up with a better adjective I'd be interested."

Medieval was the adjective my husband used - they're able to use technology as and when it suits them. For example, the IEDs they're employing now are very sophisticated bits of kit indeed and they've proven that they can adapt and change their tactics to suit the enemy. Cave people, they are not but neither are they the most enlightened people in the world.

However, their brand of Islam is very backward-looking. I'm no religious expert, and if anyone who knows more about that aspect of their beliefs would care to comment and prove me wrong, I'd be happy to be corrected.