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The reason for joining the army are many and varied some do it for the experience , some because of family tradition , some for a sense of family, some because their callous cold hearted & psychotic and have an urge to become a drill pig (apologies to pigs everwhere) etc etc

Once your in military life and found that you like it then I feel the main reason for justifying your staying and possible dying fall into several more distinct categories

A)Loyalty to your regt & to Look after you and your mates (IMHO the most common reason)
B)Proffesionalism - youve been trained & paid to do this job and now you want to see if you can do it & respond when your country needs you
C)Honour & Duty
D)Patriotism

Now Ill admit Im not a regular soldier (6 Year TA ) but my dad spent 25 years in the army so this post is a mixtureof his views and mine. When the Gulf War sequel kicked off every TA soldier(i owuld imagine) asked themselves this question and I would think that the majority of them thought long and hard about the possibilty of being killed. My view on was a mixture of A,B,C,D (strongest mixtures being A +B) for this I was prepared to leave (if mobilised) a career , a fantastic relationship that is almost developing into a marriage (im sure it would of survived but the Mrs was very very very opposed to see me going , understandably so) for something that a lot of people outside of the army see as a part time job.

PS apologies to drill pigs im sure deep down your not callous or cold hearted it just seems that way

Jail that man!!

its all a bit deep what ever happened to just wanting to shoot ragheads

hedgie_rm wrote:its all a bit deep what ever happened to just wanting to shoot ragheads

yeah iv always wanted to blow up a few westerners myself, whats wrong with that eh?

He's right I watched one US marine say,

When I first came I just wanted to shoot me some zipheads, now its something more important than that when you see the kids begging.

I agree with the statement of smiley whaler.[/quote]

nothing wrong with that just join the next raghead army that america takes a dislike too and i will see you there you might not see me though

Pride, honour, loyalty, integrity, brotherhood, patriotism, respect, privilege.

Take your pick.

I know why I did it and I'm sure some of us here have different reasons but I do think part of it is because we are inherently different to the majority.

"Why" is something that I don't believe we ask ourselves. We already know the answer.

hedgie_rm wrote:nothing wrong with that just join the next raghead army that america takes a dislike too and i will see you there you might not see me though

i was merely being sarcastic. if u wish to make silly racist comments then other people can as well. uneducated fool.

midshipman, i quite simply think hedgie was been simply sarcastic and your reply was as racist as his right? as shown in another thread on here, only hedgie would be acted against because its againt other people where as yours wouldnt be because it never is...it was a light hearted comment he made and i pretty sure he didnt mean anything by it..

cheers, dave

ok ill take ur word for it......

Oakers wrote:I know why I did it and I'm sure some of us here have different reasons but I do think part of it is because we are inherently different to the majority.

Hit the nail on the head there, not everyone would be willing to fight for there country and its citizens... hopefully ill be good enough to be apart of that special family...


lew

An interesting topic.
You do it because
a) Your told to.
b) You are part of a Regiment, most of which have a history going back hundreds of years, some of which have done great things in their own shorter history. All of which have seen acts of heroism that are unmatched in any other occupation.
To just say 'oh I don't agree with fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan so stuff them I'm going home' is to shame the Regiment you serve in and the men who went before and who will go after you.
c) Your told to.
d) If your mates can do it, so can you. If they can't, you should set an example so they can. You should be there to ensure that if you have to fight, they do not get hit.
If your not, simply because you disagree with the politics behind why your there and somebody dies because of it, your a failure as a soldier and a failure as a human being.

I joined because I wanted to see the real world and because I wanted to help it in some small way.
Didn't fancy greenpeace, did end up in green.
Granted at the time I was a naive middle class sub-urban mummys boy but hey.

thank you davo dont you just love students
signed the uneducated but worldly wise fool

lozhop makes a good point about why here
women in uniform

I just wanted drink at NAAFI prices...