Thursday 15 November 2007

UK 'doesn't care' about soldiers

In today's news, Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Strap has condemned the treatment of UK soldiers returning from active duty.

"Troops are returning to Blighty to be met by relative indifference from the general public; they are having small periods of rest and recuperation with their families, as well as short stints of army training and no victory parades or medals," he said.

"This is simply not how the civil-military covenant in Britain works!" he declared, "The UK traditionally doesn't care about soldiers."

"When I joined up [Waterloo, 1815] veterans of the Napoleonic Wars were expected to doss in the Royal parks and beg for alms like any other vagabond. Far from enjoying public indifference, they passed the Vagrancy Act to move them on."

"After the Great War, it was seen as an ex-soldier's duty to King and Country to drag their trench-footed legs along in endless victory parades, before shuffling into line at the back of the dole queue."

"Second World War veterans came back to enjoy rationing along with everyone else - without any namby-pamby bleeding-hearts writing sympathetic stories in the Press."

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