Why are people who go to war automatically declared heroes?

OK, how so?

Well, firstly it's entirely subjective, so this argument is pointless. But I just don't see it as being a hard decision to make. As I'm sure I pointed out earlier, most people that join the armed forces either WANT TO or see it as their only option for making cashmonies. Neither of these intensives really lead me to believe that it's all TUFF for them to sign up.

In fact, I was talking to my mate who's in the marines last night and the only thing he found hard about joining was the physical tests. Something like half of the people he was grouped with failed and gave up in the end (several broken bones, 2 dudes got frostbite, etc.), it took him two tries to get in blablabla. None of them even thought much about the potential danger and that involved with being shipped off. They were trying to join because of the benefits of joining.


So yeah. I really don't think it's a hard thing to do for most people. In a time of total war or something, sure, but despite our constant military engagements I really don't think you can compare Afghanistan/Iraq/Falklands etc. to that.


I'm sure it's not true for everyone, especially those that were injured or killed, but my old nextdoor neighbour, my uncle and my aunt all went off to the Falklands/Gulf because it's what they wanted to do. They all had bad experiences whilst on tour but for the most part they were enriched by it and seem to feel like they made a difference for the better.



/I'm hella intoxicated so my English here is probably appalling. Well, it's probably of the same kinda standard as the average poster here. WHATEVA'


Also, I dunno if I mentioned, but my two real options (well, they're the two that I kinda limit myself to outa choice) post university are the armed forces or forestry. And I really don't feel that joining the armed forces will be all scary and ****. Maybe it's because so many of my friends and family are in it, or because as a person I just don't seem to feel fear so much as some others, but yeah.


PS. you can have medals for being one of the few people I've disagreed with on here that I haven't ended up wanting to butcher with an axe.

Help our heroes = love your servitude

I wonder how many politicians would vote for war if they knew it meant one of their kids being sent into the front line.

It's time we realised that war is just rich men doing business using young men's lives as pawns in a political game of chess and telling them it's a noble sacrifice.

Just consider what we would be like without an army?

I suggest you (OP) get off of your detached, middle class

You never hear anyone who has died in Afghanistan described as "a bit of a git really/not really liked/he kept to himself" either.

Military dead always seem to be described in the press as "great person/everyone liked him/inspirational" etc. Its pretty unlucky that all the good eggs seem to get killed and the loner gits survive.

In what way are they fighting for this country? Are you saying that because you've had it said to you enough times?

So you're saying it's not a soldier's fault s/he has to go out to another country and kill people if need be, because the government made them?

I am not saying that the government has made them, but it is a job that someone has to do.

And no, I am not saying they are fighting for this country because it's been said to be. In fact, it has never been said to me.

Okay, so they may not be forced to do it, but the fact that they do is honourable. Often, they have been given credit for their job, but not when they are alive. They certainly deserve more credit than footballers and singers.

This is all subjective. It's a job someone has to do, unless no-one's doing it.

In reality, many soldiers kill. It is subjective, then, if killing deserves more credit than harming no-one.

I believe the concept of "hero" is thrown around too often in the media. I don't believe anyone who joins the army is a hero. It's just a job.

Forget the 'news' media telling you, tell me why YOU think this.

Someone grows up obsessed with guns, doesn't feel s/he has the intellegence to get a degree or a job, or s/he becomes a chav, and is automatically directed toward the army as their career. Why does that person then suddenly become a hero?

If that person is a wifebeater, a bully, why do you blindly say that person is a hero?

If George W Bush is evil, what does that make his soldiers? Heroes?

If, to give a less complicated example, Britain invaded Latvia quite abruptly, how are the soldiers there 'defending our freedom'?

If someone went to Afghanistan and was not called upon to do anything, why does that make him/her a hero of equal value to someone who got shot at?

Why does someone who got shot at have a heroicness of equal value to someone who ran back into a battlefield to save a wounded soldier?

What if one of those soldiers raped someone, before or after this? Who is the hero then?

Why do we use the term 'hero' rather than the more accurate term 'pawn', or 'statistic'?

Why does one become less of a hero the further away from the battlefield and being shot at they are? Why do you become a hero if you're in the front line of a controversial war shooting people, but not for being the President/Prime Minister/whatever that arranged it?

If I go to the zoo, jump into the lion enclosure, get attacked by a lion but kill it, why does that not make me a hero?

If someone threatens me, do I become a hero if I fight their friends because my dad told me to?

Just wonderin'. Being a hero doesn't seem that simple to me, but I await your theories.

That's generalising everyone in the army. Not everyone in the army is like that. People who are in the army aren't necessarily wife beaters or bullies.

I didn't generalise because I didn't say that I was describing everyone in the army, that would just be retarded.

Starting to piss me off that people keep saying that, because all it is is the reader's brain processing it in a way that they think the word 'if' is a figment of our imaginations and 'everyone in the army' is in there somehow (perhaps only bats can read it) due to their own views or subconcious bias, not mine or simply in fact what I actually wrote.