BPX064: Cannon Fodder

[Neon Ignition]

We're, we're assuming, a long way from the UK being actively engaged in open warfare on a large scale but where it follows so does the idea of conscription (typically 18-35yr olds) and voluntary signing. Usually the latter is followed quickly by the former as governments seek to shore up their front line numbers.

War now exist in the nuclear age so there's been a stalemate presumption but as we're seeing in Ukraine, the one the ground scenario still every much exists so this is a simple set up:

In a large scale wartime scenario for the UK:

Would you voluntarily apply for the military service?

Would conscription work?

[Neon Ignition]

As a kid I first heard about this via my Grandad and kind of quickly came to the conclusion that I'd rather leave the country, I really don't care about this country in the slightest enough to lose life over it. It came up at school too, part of that Cold War era concept and what might be.

I've always wondered if the country even has the capacity to enforce it or whether modern day UK sensibilities have weathered the public's blind support too much to do it

[Asura]

Would you voluntarily apply for the military service?

Unusual one, this - because I did apply.

But this was in the 90s, and things were different. Before 9/11. It was before Kosovo, even. We were witnessing "the end of history" after all.

That being said, I understand many of the young people who sign up; I was coming from an area in something of a depression, with a culture that still resounded with the echoes of the industrial woes of the 70s and early 80s. Many people I knew were looking at military service, because all of us had parents who were associated with heavy industry, and there was the perception that was a dying career and we were urged not to pursue it. Plus when you're 16, it seems like a grand adventure when the alternative seems to be either spending a ton of money on university or working in Woolworths.

I didn't get in; long story which I won't go into but I got through multiple rounds of testing at various sites before I had to withdraw. In retrospect it turned out well, especially given all the wars that followed. That being said, I think most people have a fork in their life where you can idly think about how different things would be, had that one situation wrapped up differently, and this is mine. My present life and that life would probably be unrecognisable from each other.

Would conscription work?

Assuming we're putting aside the Ukraine situation - where you've literally got an enemy army coming over the hills and it's everyone-to-the-pumps - as that's something where I think many people who wouldn't normally consider it perhaps would.

In my case, it's hard to decide.

The knee-jerk reaction is that there's absolutely no way I would sacrifice my life for this island and its ignorant, small-minded people. I mean I've literally never voted for the winning party in a general election. I voted remain for Brexit. And if Boris is PM then the answer's definitely no, to the point where I laugh at even the notion of taking orders from Cosplay Churchill. I've said it here many times, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong - fundamentally bad - about the English mindset. The way we do small, selfish things that amount to bigger things; stuff like vandalise toilets. The way we underfund the NHS. There's an adage that in a democracy, the country gets the government it truly deserves, and I honestly think the corrupt, incompetent, kleptocratic Tory government of today is the government this country deserves, because we're just bad.

But I know there are good people in this country. There are people who are doing their best, day in, day out. An army of people working for the NHS who could earn more in private care, but believe in that cause and are fighting to keep it going. People at various levels of government and local organisations who are doing everything they can. Refusing the defend the country would be abandoning those people, and I would like to think that I wouldn't do that.

But truthfully, I don't know. And that bothers me.

[Dogg Thang]

I am in a very firm "I don't know" category here. I hate violence, in reality. I hate war. I don't think I'd be able for it. I know I'd be rubbish at it. And I can't imagine what it must be like to take a life under any circumstances. And yet when it comes down to it, if my home was being invaded, I might find I have no choice but to sign up and fight to protect it. I might have to.

[Neon Ignition]

I think my last linking memory to the idea of joining the military came from carreers day early in my last year at High School. One by one each kid was sat down with a career advisor to talk about what they did well at school in, what their interests were and to advise on career ideas moving forward. Every single boy came out with the same recommendation as me, joining the army. They literally couldn't have listened less to what I was saying but it also laid bare at an early age how much our military is also designed around the exploitation of the youth.

[Protocol Penguin]

I think my last linking memory to the idea of joining the military came from carreers day early in my last year at High School. One by one each kid was sat down with a career advisor to talk about what they did well at school in, what their interests were and to advise on career ideas moving forward. Every single boy came out with the same recommendation as me, joining the army. They literally couldn't have listened less to what I was saying but it also laid bare at an early age how much our military is also designed around the exploitation of the youth.

Same at my secondary school! Always assumed because it was a sink comprehensive in a grammar school area that the careers services assumed that we were only just good for cannon fodder.

[CMcK]

I wanted to join the RAF after school with a view to getting into avionics but was disqualified because I wore glasses. I can't imagine the forces are so picky these days.
I have to echo Asura's comments too. Imagine fighting to defend the barely functioning democracy that is Westminster and saving clowns like, BoJo, Rees-Mogg, Patel and Raab.
I hope that the widespread coverage of events in Ukraine leads more of these WWII fantasists to realise just how nasty these events really are.

[fishbowlhead]

“Would you voluntarily apply for the military service?”

I did during the sub prime recession. Long story short is my business collapsed overnight as all the shops i was selling too went bust almost immediately. All their credit, loans, overdrafts, everything got called in and they all just folded taking all my winters money with them.

I needed a back up in case I couldn’t save the business. So I picked out counter intelligence off the careers path after a few tests as it would of suited me working on my own and being independent out on battlefields and bases. I did all the tests, flew through those, I went to the first fitness induction at Colchester and managed 1.5miles in 6:50 with a 15kg rucksack on, the other fitness tests were pretty laughable to be honest.

2 days later they call me up and say I can’t progress any further due to 2 dislocated knees on my medical record they didn’t pick up on initially, and that was the end of that.

1 week after that i had a 120k order in out the blue from a Russian company I’d never dealt with before, they were dropped by another uk brand and needed to fill the hole, I thought it was spam or at the very least a scam but low and behold, the money arrived in my account 1 week after sending the invoice. I paid all my suppliers and anyone else i owed money too and the rest is history, it enabled me to carry on and build it all up again, they were a great customer for a number of years until Russia was hit by sanctions and my customer couldn’t import my goods anymore.


I think military life would of suited me to be honest, however it definitely would of left me even colder than I already am.

[Hirst]

I wouldn't apply or allow myself to be conscripted as I know already that my role during wartime is to operate as some kind of spiv, selling smuggled goods and counterfeit papers out of a car boot.

[MartyG]

If MPs want to join a war, they can go and fight there themselves first.

[Asura]

2 days later they call me up and say I can’t progress any further due to 2 dislocated knees on my medical record they didn’t pick up on initially, and that was the end of that.

Did they offer you catering? Chaplaincy?

The RAF do that. They extend the selection to everyone; even though they take your medical records etc. and could easily strike you off with a spreadsheet, they get you to go through various rounds of testing, then only after all that they tell you what they knew from the start and offer you something else.

I've always believed it's because there are jobs in the Forces no-one wants to do and are difficult to recruit for. They think if they get you to jump through a load of hoops, when they offer you something you didn't want, you might take it, because you've gone that far and are (hopefully, for them) invested in the idea of joining up and can't see your way to doing something else.

[gunrock]

[MENTION=2561]fishbowlhead[/MENTION]: remind me what your business is again. Something is saying shoes to me, but that might just be my crusty old brain backfilling empty memory slots with feasible but improbable junk.

[fishbowlhead]

I’ve never mentioned it to be honest but I manufacture fishing baits, suet pellets for garden birds & floating pond pellets. Back then it was just fishing baits.

[gunrock]

Ah cool. Not sure why I had the idea it was shoes!

Running a manufacturing company just sounds like something so beyond my skillset. If you started from the ground up, you'd have to work out how to keep the place clean and reduce waste etc., I'd imagine, just so much stuff I wouldn't know where to start or what to do for the best. Amazing. Hats off to you, sir!

Is it a messy job?

Sorry to derail the thread folks...

On topic:
My answer would obviously that I'd want to refuse, but if it was WW3 and I was conscripted, I guess it makes sense to fight rather than just capitulate to some megalomaniac like Putin. I mean, if his armies had marched through Europe as was knocking on the door and that my family wasn't safe, then I guess I'd comply.

If it was just defending the some rocky outcrop like Gibraltar or the Falklands, which are British for no good reason other than just being the remaining colonial dregs of the old empire, then I guess I'd be in lock up for refusing to be conscripted.

[Asura]

Ah cool. Not sure why I had the idea it was shoes!

Someone here ran a chain of shoe-shops; no idea who it was.