The British Military

I was browsing some blogs earlier on and came across a post suggesting that the British Military were the best thing since sliced pan.

Now, I just can't agree with that. I have been abused and threatened by moronic thugs from the Black Watch. Friends of mine lived in a place (Aldershot) where they couldn't leave their flat at night because the local military liked to beat up everyone. (I used to shop in a motorcycle shop in Aldershot where they were glad when they heard my accent: it meant I would actually pay for what I wanted and I wouldn't trash the place.)

Of course, that's the current Military. When I was living in London, I met very many men who'd served in the Second World War, or Suez or even the Gulf. I remember talking to men who'd flown Spitfires in WWII or even just laboured in London, cleaning up the aftermath of the V2s. Without exception, they were Good Men; they fought when required but they didn't think that it was required of a man to always be at war. "We fought against that Mr Hitler until we beat him", said one man, "and then we went back to our normal jobs, because, letting him make us into non-Englishmen meant that we lost the war".

Sure, "Dad's Army" is funny, but it's also very serious: Fat bank managers were fully prepared to fight Hitler on the beaches and on the street corners, with whatever help they could get. The Nazis would never have conquered England. At most, they would have killed everyone in it, but they would never conquer it.

It's kind of hard to respect a military when they are barred from most pubs for fighting. It's hard to respect a military when they have a reputation of being racist. It's impossible to respect a military when, the last time you met one, he had to restrained from killing me because I sounded Irish.

Really, there's a very small subsector of English society which is extremely racist and arrogant. These guys almost always colour the impressions of everyone else no matter where they go. Most people aren't like that - it's only a very small minority, but they all colour the view of outsiders. And being the arrogant twits that they are, they usually don't see that their actions have any effect on others. They are true sociopaths in every sense of the word.