Oh, I hate that phrase.flangleelgnalf said:
I keep seeing it in the papers and hearing it on the radio here and I hate it.
Every soldier killed in action "gave his life for his country," according to the media, and it's bullshit.
1: No, they didn't. They just caught bullets or shrapnel or blastwave or whatever and didn't survive it. Friggin' journalists ought to be doing their jobs, reporting what actually happened, not just replacing "XXXX" with the soldier's name and "XXXXX" with the location in a standard report.
2: Sometimes someone actually does assess the situation and choose a course of action that he knows is very likely to kill him becase he thinks it's worth it. Like I said, I never want to earn a 'big' medal. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Smith_%28GC%29] Most often, it's not for his country, though. It's for his mates behind and beside him or for some silly git who walked into a minefield or for some kid who wandered into the wrong place and got hurt or for the local girl who brings them coffee or something smaller but more definite and more immediate.
3: Whatever his reasons for it, you take away from his valour by ascribing the same to everyone.
4: To say that a soldier willingly died for his country is to imply things about how much he cared about coming home to his wife and children, and I think they'd be right to take umbrage.
5: To some extent, everyone who joins up gives part of his or her life "for the country" or for foreign policy or for some bunch of rich bastards to steal oilfields, get fat no-bid taxpayer-funded contracts and pose under a Mission Accomplished banner, as the case may be. You don't join up, do a few years and leave again the same person at the same age just with more money and something good on your CV. People come out with bad knees, bad backs, bad nightmares, bad tempers, xenophobia, paranoia, Golf War Syndrome, missing limbs, scars, vCJD* and so on. The media tend to report all the deaths as massive events and maybe mention the loss of both legs, one arm and an eye in passing as "two other soldiers were also injured, one of them seriously," in a report of a fatality. This is dishonouring the sacrifice made willingly with or without foreknowledge by signing on the line by everyone who joins and the loss suffered unwillingly by the ones who leave bits of themselves behind out there.
It could be worse. We could have some dickhead saying wounded veterans are harming the country's defence by needing expensive care and officers who seem to consider dying in action to be the main qualifying factor in heroism.
* Seriously, they call that food?
Every soldier killed in action "gave his life for his country," according to the media, and it's bullshit.
1: No, they didn't. They just caught bullets or shrapnel or blastwave or whatever and didn't survive it. Friggin' journalists ought to be doing their jobs, reporting what actually happened, not just replacing "XXXX" with the soldier's name and "XXXXX" with the location in a standard report.
2: Sometimes someone actually does assess the situation and choose a course of action that he knows is very likely to kill him becase he thinks it's worth it. Like I said, I never want to earn a 'big' medal. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Smith_%28GC%29] Most often, it's not for his country, though. It's for his mates behind and beside him or for some silly git who walked into a minefield or for some kid who wandered into the wrong place and got hurt or for the local girl who brings them coffee or something smaller but more definite and more immediate.
3: Whatever his reasons for it, you take away from his valour by ascribing the same to everyone.
4: To say that a soldier willingly died for his country is to imply things about how much he cared about coming home to his wife and children, and I think they'd be right to take umbrage.
5: To some extent, everyone who joins up gives part of his or her life "for the country" or for foreign policy or for some bunch of rich bastards to steal oilfields, get fat no-bid taxpayer-funded contracts and pose under a Mission Accomplished banner, as the case may be. You don't join up, do a few years and leave again the same person at the same age just with more money and something good on your CV. People come out with bad knees, bad backs, bad nightmares, bad tempers, xenophobia, paranoia, Golf War Syndrome, missing limbs, scars, vCJD* and so on. The media tend to report all the deaths as massive events and maybe mention the loss of both legs, one arm and an eye in passing as "two other soldiers were also injured, one of them seriously," in a report of a fatality. This is dishonouring the sacrifice made willingly with or without foreknowledge by signing on the line by everyone who joins and the loss suffered unwillingly by the ones who leave bits of themselves behind out there.
It could be worse. We could have some dickhead saying wounded veterans are harming the country's defence by needing expensive care and officers who seem to consider dying in action to be the main qualifying factor in heroism.
* Seriously, they call that food?
