h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One thing that's puzzling me is the adulation heaped upon soldiers these days.

Before I go on, because otherwise somebody WILL get the wrong end of the stick: I am not belittling what soldiers do, or what they go through.

It seems that every single soldier who gets deployed to an active warzone is a 'war hero' now. Every time something even vaguely negative happens to a soldier who has seen active duty the tabloids report it like someone was being deliberately disrespectful of the 'war hero', with the none-too-subte between the lines always reading "If it wasn't for him we'd all be wearing teatowels on our heads and praising Allah."
Yet for all these journalists know they could have been a complete nobber and spent most of their time out there doing latrines.

It's not that long ago that to be a 'war hero' a soldier had to do something exceptional, now it's apparently just enough to hold a gun and wear a uniform in the desert. Does anyone know why this has happened?

I keep saying it (and I keep getting nasty looks for it)

I have known soldiers all my life. Heck, I've even been one. They are regular people, some are more idiotic than others and some are genuine heroes. But the bottom line is: they are like the rest of us until they do something heroic.

I'm sure I saw the same sort of thing in the literature printed around WWI.

When soliders are at war those left behind need to think of them all as heros?

It is changing because individual soldiers are no longer 'canon fodder' or hidden under 'Miscellaneous Sundry Items'.

Journalism is very much up to the minute reviews, and is now being more sensitive in the way they are reporting issues. Also, a lot of these people have met the soldiers at some point, so it becomes a personal issue with them, too.

You missed the point. Soldiers are happier with public adulation than with danger money. It makes fiscal sense.

Make soldiers feel like heroes and you get to pay them less you mean?

You do the math.

Charities like Help the Heroes even cover the costs of rehabilitation previously shouldered by the treasury.

It's also an easy way to quiet dissenting voices on war itself. Criticise the war? Then you are belittling what the soldiers do, and *you're* not courageous enough to do it yourself so shut up. And having a hero or two means that what 'we' are doing - wherever it is - must be right and good because heroes don't work for the baddies, only the goodies. And if all soldiers are heroes (or heroes in waiting) then the incidences of criminal and offensive behaviour are just a few bad apples or just people doing a very difficult job slipping up once, nothing more. I mean, there can be extenuating circumstances - just as there can be in any situation - but they are specific, not general.

And I think the heroes are heroes despite being in a combat situation, not because of it. They're like everyone else, in that they're all different. And I think military life takes a certain sort of person - as do desk jobs, surgeons, park rangers and stay-at-home mums.

It's the same principle with nurses, of course.

yup. Even down to there being a general view of the profession as being 'good' and 'heroic' whilst having more suspicion about motives and competency the further up the ladder you go.

There's still a remnant of it with the Police, too. An officer being hurt, injured or even killed is somehow even more shocking than normal, generally.

But then, socially, these (military, healthcare, policing) are, we are told, the props of our civilisation. Without them, all would fall apart and we be over run by criminals, disease or enemies. So society as a whole seeks to protect them as much as possible by giving them a very high status within it.

Yet other public servants get the opposite treatment - especially civil servants and council workers.

but the reality is very different. Go into any downtown pub with a couple of squaddies, and generally they get more abuse than you would expect of a couple of Super Soaraway Sun-Stylee heroes.

Soldiers - in the abstract, away in foreign climes fighting a war are heroes. The ones in the pub are overpaid () oversexed and over here...

Yes, shortsightedness I think. They're the ones who take, who constrain, who tells us what we can and can't do. Which, I think, is why the police have moved to less respected in the more individualist societies.

Seems as a group, we can't see beyond one remove to understand that the taking is what pays for all these other professions.

So, overall, the conclusion is that people as a large group are pretty thick and will believe even the most obvious tricks.
And I was feeling quite happy when I logged in...

not that I tend to frequent anywhere that's had a large squaddy contingent, but isn't a lot of that abuse from locals who think they're 'ard and fronting up to a squaddie gives them kudos in front of their mates?

yep, alongside nicking all the birds (TM) and earning more money yadda yadda

I knew a lot of, frankly, rissoles () in the army, and a lot of normal people, and very few really good bon oeufs who could, honestly, be described as heroes. They're just people. And I wish the papers would stop calling them that.

Slightly a re-enactor friend of mine was in the pub with some of his re-enacting mates after an event and a load of the local TA lads were in and generally being obnoxious and telling the re-enactors to go join a real army, and so on...

It really kicked off when one of the re-enactors turned quite calmly to one of the TA lads and said "so, as one pretend soldier to another..."

Soldiers sometimes come home having seen or experienced things they can't handle. Has anyone seen the film "Brothers" or "Mrs. Dalloway" or "Birdsong"? It isn't so much the actual heroism of what they did while in service, but the corrosion of mind and/or body while they were there. They often need medical and/or psychiatric services, often at a time when governments are trying to cut costs at Veterans' Hospitals. My heart weeps for the ones who don't get the help they need, it really does!

There's a charity that collects donations and builds specially equipped houses for veterans who have been severely wounded in the Iraq War. I sang in a performance of "The Armed Man" by Karl Jenkins; the ocncert was a fundraiser for this charity.

>> now it's apparently just enough to hold a gun and
wear a uniform in the desert. Does anyone know why
this has happened? <<

Because it IS enough to hold a gun and wear a uniform.

It's not for everyone of course.
Have you been?

I haven't, I wouldn't, but when I see a uniform in my
area of the world it gets my respect. The guy may have
never left Canada, he may only have dug latrines, or he
may have been standing beside one of the more than 150
Canadians who have given their lives in Afghanistan.
That's all just chance and as may be, but he's wearing
the uniform and that takes guts and integrity and it's
enough to earn my respect. I treat them all as heroes.

~jwf~

Right. So the mere act of putting on a military uniform is enough to show 'guts' and 'integrity' and command respect?

Meanwhile in the real world...

All the lads I know in the forces joined up because it was that or the dole.

Or selling cocaine, but that comes with a far higher risk of getting shot.