Pointless Rant of The Day: The British Army

DISCLAIMER: This article is not in any way, meant to cause distress to men or women in the Army, or the families of the deceased. Our forces do a marvellous job, and deserve commendation.

Last night I became incredibly irate after watching a commercial on television, the advert was promoting Army Careers. Hang on a minute, is it my imagination or just a few days was there an announcement that a second batch of redundancies was being sent out? (the first was April). Yes! A quick Google search reveals that as recently as four days ago the media were discussing 1000+ redundancies in the British Army. Now forgive my ignorance, but is it not better to retain the services of longer standing soldiers, than lay them off to recruit new ones? Of course I guess it’s all down to the money, why pay Jack £450 a week, when they can pay Jess £200 because he is a new recruit. It does seem however that the newer recruits are more likely to be casualties in the theatre of war, so presumably not just cheaper, but more expendable!

Image via Wikipedia

While I’m on the subject of the British Army, in looking for proof of redundancy figures, I stumbles upon a grieving Grandmother who lost her Grandson just three weeks ago, she said the same thing all relatives say “he was just 20, he never asked to go to Afghanistan!” Well I’m sorry, but obviously he did. UK forces have been fighting in Afghanistan now for ten years, they moved in literally two weeks after the World Trade Centre came down. So, when the victim was ten, we were at war with terrorists in Afghanistan. By 16 when he decided to enrol in the army (if it was indeed 16 or maybe 18) we were still at war, we also would have been battling insurgents in Iraq. Surely it is common sense that when you enrol in the army, if soldiers are overseas being killed in battle there is a 90% chance you will be expected to join them?

As I said, I mean no disrespect, but we have heard the “he/she never wanted to go to…” a dozen times, nobody forced these people to enlist, this was a choice they made, they take a vow to fight for Queen and country, they must accept the consequences of their decisions.

Any loss is tragic, and personally our soldiers should not be fighting; but this is what the role entails and what people joining the army should ultimately accept.