Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am in agreement with the gentleman who has negative feelings on the term "Warrior". I have been involved for the past 40 years (starting from Boys Service in the British Army) with soldiering in one form or the other, and have seen a number of "two way rifle ranges", both as a participant and as a peacekeeper/observor. To I, the term "warrior" brings out such as the Nazi SS, the uniformed thugs in Lebanon, and the Former Yugoslavia, the madness of armed men and women in Sierra Leone and Somalia.
While the term "soldier" brings to mind the rifle platoon of 23 Royal Welch Fusiliers, they in the tradition of their regiment, their response to their leaders, and their natural comradeship to their mates, resulting in a sense of duty which protected 1600 Muslims from over 820 heavily armed Serb ‘Warriors", whilst only a few miles away a 800 strong battalion of Dutch "Warriors" as they proudly called themselves from the Airmobile Brigade (a regular unit of the Dutch Army), handed over 7,000 Muslim males to the Serbian "Warriors" to be butchered.
I had been present when the Bn CO of the 13th Bn of the Airmobile Bde, stated that the "toy soldiers" of the British, were nowhere as good as the "fighting Warrior" that the modern Dutch Army empified! His officers in total agreement.
There is no doubt in my mind as to who are the real "soldiers". Over the years, I have found that the only people in any country that talks about "Warriors", are those who have never been on a two way rifle range. Also be they Americans/Australians/Brits/Canadians etc, they are invariably reservists. When you soldier for a living, you become reality based very quickly.
Soldiering is not just about ‘war fighting‘, it‘s all about the other things that soldiers do; peacekeeping, aid to the civil power, ceremonial, barracks maintenance, training for war in all it‘s variations. Urban, jungle, desert, the North German Plain, mechanised, airmobile.
Ensuring your soldiers feet are clean, their fed and clothed, they don‘t do more than their fair share of guards or patrols. The mail comes through, Pte Bloggs 17 YO wife and 6/12 child are looked after. The QM makes sure the Bn gets its fair share of the beer breakup from Bde, etc etc etc.
The "Warrior" with his big gym biceps, cam painted face, boutique head covering, grasping his M60 whilst covered in link of 7.62, assorted knives, pistols, grenades, survival equipment and of course the obligatory climbing rope. Is I am afraid nowhere as good as Pte Boggs with his snotty nose, whining about his 17 YO wife and 6/12 child back in barracks, he‘s the lad who no matter how bad he is, will be up there with his mate‘s doing their job as a soldier, be they riflemen, drivers, staff clerks or hygiene dutymen, and if they don‘t, the Pl Sgt or CSM counsel them as to their military duty (o‘ for the days when you could give them a verbal quick kick up the bum)!
In regard to how the modern youth will cope with patriotism etc, the following may be of interest.
From the Daily Telegraph of London:
The spirit of Douglas Bader lives on among the British
By Iain Duncan Smith
News: Legend of Douglas Bader is set in stone
SIXTY years ago next Thursday, Gp Capt Douglas Bader collided with a Messerschmitt 109 over northern France. The crash tore the tail off his
Spitfire at 24,000ft, sending it into its death dive. It had plunged to 1,000ft before Bader was sucked out of the cockpit; but one of his artificial legs was trapped, leaving him dangling upside down in mid-air. He was battered mercilessly by the slipstream, and the limb tore away just in time for his parachute to open. Even so, he broke two ribs as he landed.
The Luftwaffe was honoured to have such a prisoner on its hands. In the 18 months since rejoining the RAF, Bader had notched up 20 confirmed kills and an estimated 10 more, and had pioneered a new form of formation flying.
Chivalrously, the Germans offered safe passage to an aircraft so that a replacement leg could be dropped for him. But the RAF refused, instead
dropping the limb during a bombing raid - a decision of which Bader heartily
approved.
After repeated escape attempts, Bader was transferred to Colditz, where his exasperated captors were eventually driven to remove his legs every night. I remember, as a boy, hearing my father‘s RAF colleagues talking of the way in
which Bader insisted on being included in escape attempts for which his disability rendered him unsuitable. Yet his ceaseless energy transmitted
itself to those around him.
I met Bader only once, briefly. It was when he and a number of others were collecting together before going out to dinner. One of those in the group
was my father and he introduced his young son to Douglas Bader. I was somewhat overawed, although the meeting left me fascinated by his remarkable story. I read everything I could about him and what continues to come through all that is written about him is his essence: his stubbornness, his restlessness, his courage. He was a man who would not accept that the loss of his legs made him disabled. Photographs show him taking taking part in American Indian rituals, riding, swimming and playing golf - and always with the same faintly pugnacious expression.
Golf had been his particular passion ever since his accident put paid to a rugby career. "Golf undoubtedly is the game that a physically handicapped person can play on equal terms with others," he once wrote. Not that equal terms were enough for him: he also had to win.
My father, who was an excellent golfer, told me the story of how he once played golf with Bader at Muirfield: an unusually long and arduous course.
As they changed for lunch after 18 holes, he noticed that Bader‘s leg-stumps had been rubbed raw. Over lunch, members of the party suggested various ways to spend the afternoon, but Bader was implacable: he insisted on playing a further 18 holes.
Many people have drawn inspiration from the story of this brave, irascible man. But I see him as something rather more than just an example of defiance against the odds. For me, Bader was an archetype of his generation.
During the war years, Britain was peopled by millions of Baders. Few had to overcome such great difficulties, and fewer still achieved his fame. But, in their own way, they also displayed a capacity for heroism and sacrifice that they had not, perhaps, suspected in themselves.
Even now, in my constituency work, I am struck by the courage of the wartime generation. Faced with a painful illness, or unexpected poverty, or
bereavement, they remain uncomplaining. Perhaps it is because of the experience of the war itself: losing friends during the Blitz no doubt puts
other troubles in context. But I think it has more to do with an ethic: a sense of duty that many fear we are now losing.
When Bader lost his legs in 1931, he wrote in his log-book: "X Country Reading. Crashed slow rolling near ground. Bad show." In this age of complaints and litigation, such stoicism seems almost nimaginable.
Almost, but not wholly. There may still be reason to hope that, in the right circumstances, we would respond as our parents and grandparents did before
us. Certainly Bader himself thought so. In 1981, near the end of his life, he visited the bedside of Cpl Philip Hartley, who had lost both legs in an
IRA rocket attack in Belfast. Afterwards, he was asked how contemporary young people compared with those he had known in 1940. He replied: "I have no doubt that they would display the same courage in the event of war. They would be just as brave. Characteristics do not change in a few generations."
He may well have been right. After all, many had despaired of Britain during the 1930s. But, when it seemed almost too late, our people displayed a sense of determination that astonished the world.
I believe that this sense of determination is still there. Looking at the boys and girls of my children‘s generation, I can still see flashes of Douglas Bader. It takes new forms and, God willing, it will never again need to be tested in war. But there is the same dauntlessness, the same refusal to take no for an answer.
This extraordinary resolve, perhaps more than any other trait, has made us what we are as a people. And, as Bader said, characteristics do not change
in a few generations.
Iain Duncan Smith is shadow defence secretary
This may be biaised towards Britons, but, I have personally found the same spirit in Australia/Canada/NZ. It has always been human nature to denigrate the youth of the nation, you can see it in the writings of the Greeks, in the 1820‘s people in Britain were saying the country was finished because of the decadence of the nation‘s youth!!!!
Yours,
Jock in Sydney
