What's war service?

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#1

A lot of Korean and especially Vietnam veterans were rejected by Australian returned servicemen’s organisations as not having been involved in ‘a real war’.

Does the scale of the war or the nature of the action determine whether you’ve served in a war?

I reckon if you’re in a section or half section or even individual contact with all the noise and confusion, it’s war.

After all, in the biggest war, all contacts come down to section or half-section or even individual contacts.

I don’t recall anyone who died in battle in WWI or II being described as “Not killed in a war, as stood on a mine in rear area.”

I concede that, for example, a British soldier who went through a lot in WWI or WWII had a different experience to, say, a soldier in the Falklands or Northern Ireland. Then again, most British soldiers in WWI, at least those who survived, never experienced anything like Northern Ireland, any more than Australian soldiers in WWI or WWII experienced anything like Vietnam, when in both cases there wasn’t a front line and the home front wasn’t all that supportive either.

Is it sensible to distinguish between ‘real’ wars and other ‘wars’, e.g. Iraq or Afghanistan, if you can get killed because you’re carrying out military duties?

#2

No!

Try telling a dead soldier’s family that he wasn’t involved in a real war.

#3

That about sums up what I think.

#4

Does the ‘cause’ alter it?

For example, was WWII a greater cause than Korea and Korea a greater cause than Vietnam?

I don’t think so, so far as determining whether or not a soldier died in a war.

Or, perhaps more importantly, died as a soldier.

The governments’ actions may be bad, but it doesn’t detract from what the soldier did, unless it’s a bad action like My Lai.

#5

Is it becuase there has to be a declaration of War? I dont think the UK makes any difference here as the Falklands War didnt involve us declaring war on the Argentines?

I think anyone who served their country in any conflict deserves the recognition due to them.

#6

Any requirement for a declaration of war also rules out Korea which was a ‘police action’ etc, for a start, and Vietnam, which as far as the non-SVN forces were concerned were just aids to SVN in an undeclared civil war which on the face of it was an insurgency, vigourously supported by NVN.

Gets down to some of those semantical definitions for decorations and war pensions etc about ‘war like operations’.

If somebody on the other side is shooting at me, I’m inclined to think it’s warlike.

But that gets back to the notion that ‘warlike’ is on a large and impressive scale with conventional combatants fighting each other. On that basis the Falklands qualifies, but Northern Ireland doesn’t.

So that a Brit shot in the Falklands died in a war, but a British soldier shot behind a pub on leave in Northern Ireland, or even in Gibraltar, didn’t. Whereas a German soldier stumbling home from a French pub killed by a British commando was killed in war.

I think anyone who served their country in any conflict deserves the recognition due to them.

Couldn’t agree more.

But the problem is, from my viewpoint, that nations can’t recognise what is due.

Some peacekeepers in Bosnia or Rwanda did more, and saw worse, than thousands of support people in uniform dotted around the globe in WWII who picked up a chestful of theatre medals etc, but were essentially labourers and clerks in uniform.

Yet some poor bastard whose brain was screwed by being forced to do nothing in Bosnia or Rwanda is dismissed as having a mental disorder unrelated to service while an erk who got sunburn in India while waiting to load Daks is accepted as entitled to war benefits.

#7

It is almost as if we have a first class and second class situation.

I would suppose that a part of it, particularly regarding the two W.W.'s is whether or not the home-nation is in peril.

Other reasons could be, for example, created by ministerial and military administration.

Here in the UK we have our local city, town and village memorials, and for the most part (as far as I’ve seen) they are kept up to date with recent theatre KIA’s being added alongside those more historic.

In my opinion, the Cenotaph, Whitehall, London, should be a representative of all that have been killed while serving their country.

I agree regarding the treatment of GI’s returning from Vietnam, and consider it appalling. I believe that there was something similar going on in the Soviet Union with returning ‘Afghansty’.

I think Kipling’s poem ‘Tommy’ just about sums it up
“…but it’s thank you Mr Atkins,
when the bands begin to play!”

#8

And the strongly felt wartime sentiment that the troops who save the nation shall, in Llloyd George’s words, return to a land fit for heroes.

Which evaporates the moment peace breaks out.

The aftermath of WWI, which pretty much sums up all wars, http://www.aftermathww1.com/landfit.asp

But if you want to see something even more revolting and heartless and just plain bloody wrong, the Americans’ best military hospital treated their Vietnam veterans like shit and they’re still doing it, which demonstrates the consistency of contempt in all nations for the soldiers they extol publicly but treat like shit privately. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172_pf.html

#9

Yes, when Maggie had her victory parade after the Falklands, the wheelchair veterans were kept out of site of the cameras and were only able to leave the Cathedral at the end of the service after the crowds and the ress had dispersed.

#10

And this pretty much sums up how it was for many, with no dramatic wounds or other disabling injuries, beyond those inflicted by the war and the new ones inflicted by the peace.

J.B. Priestley’s English Journey first published in 1934 contains an account of a reunion of his old battalion in a Bradford pub.

London, 1920s.

“Several of us had arranged with the secretary to see that original members of the battalion to whom the price of the dinner was prohibitive were provided with free tickets. But this, he told me, had not worked very well; and my old platoon comrades confirmed this, too, when I asked about one or two men. They were so poor, these fellows, that they said they could not attend the dinner even if provided with free tickets because they felt that their clothes were not good enough…”

“They were with us, swinging along, while the women and old men cheered, in that early battalion of Kitchener’s New Army, were with us when kings, statesmen, general officers, all reviewed us, when the crowds threw flowers, blessed us, cried over us; and then stood in the mud and water, scrambled through the broken strands of barbed wire, saw the sky darken and the earth open with red hot steel, and came back as official heroes and also as young-old workmen wanting to pick up their jobs and their ordinary life again; and now, in 1933, they could not even join us in a tavern because they had no decent coats to their backs. We could drink to the tragedy of the dead; but we could only stare at one another, in pitiful embarrassment, over this tragi-comedy of the living, who had fought for a world that did not want them, who had come back to exchange their uniforms for rags.”

http://www.aftermathww1.com/landfit2.asp

#11

She was just being considerate. The disabled veterans couldn’t be expected to move at normal speed. :evil:

Much as she annoyed me in many ways, Maggie wasn’t unique. Keeping the realities of war out of sight of the people who benefit from it has been around for as long as public distaste for the consequences of war.

#12

That doesn’t excuse it.

Fortunately, in this age of information, soldiers are more able to raise their public profile.

#13

i agree if you gave your life for your country you should be fully recognized as veteran by your country.

#14

Another way of looking at it, is that much of what soldiers are doing - when on peace keeping, anti-insurgency, internal security or even famine relief and emergency aid type operations - is they are making a difference. They are usually attempting to provide protection and succour to the vulnerable and the terrorised. Sometimes it goes awry (usually when politicians get in the way – but not always) and sometimes it’s successful. However one looks at it, they are doing their duty to their country and their country has a duty and responsibility to them.

#15

I have to say, it sounds like the Aussie vets of the later Cold War struggles deserved so much better than this. The way they were treated is almost criminal…

The organization of veterans sound like the typical assholes that are blaming the victims of of the perceived sins of the gov’t for the sins of the gov’t…