I was talking to someone who was on about National Service and how it changed his entire outlook, interested I asked how?
He said that before he was 'called up' in the 50's, he was a proper tearawy, a teddy boy who spent his time thinking he was a proper little hard man and always fighting. He said that when he had to report to Oswestry he went by train along with all the others reporting with him. He turned up in his full regalia for the journey, drapes and brothel creepers and looking with contempt at all the other new recruits in their raincoats, trying to catch their eye, but they all looked away. When the train finally arrived, lorries were waiting for them and he sat on his case in the back to keep his suit clean...and then they arrived at the camp gates, and this is roughly what he said...'as we all got out of the wagons, the camp entrance was in front of us, there were three redcaps, two stood together and one very tall one watching us very carefully, he annoyed me, who did he think he was. All the lads walked towards the gate and the barrier went up and the two redcaps together directed the lads to where they should report. I just stood there till they'd all gone through when the tall redcap spoke to me and quietly said to me " come to join us then son?".... I swaggered over to the gate, put the tips of my brothel creepers on the white line that marked the barrier, looked the redacp in the face and said.." I start here at 3 0'clock, I've got five minutes yet you c**t!!"...His expression never changed, but his face turned to stone, then he smiled in scary way and said.." we'll discuss it after 3 O' clock then.....sonny"
He said he cried for a month.

What's that song.........life on a sevicemans pay sergeant, life on a servicemans pay.

Ah, The Shores of Old Blighty.....by the sadly neglected Mr Graeme Miles

National service was abandoned before I was eligible, but I heard a few stories like that from people who did it. I think it did a lot of good though and I sometimes regret not having been in the Armed Forces. My brother in law said he was told to drop some kit out of an upstairs window and run down the stairs to catch it before it hit the deck. He said the daft thing was that he actually attempted to do it.

I too am too young you remember National Service, but I think it should be brought back.

If the scum bags who drain away the monies of the government dont want to get a job sent them to the front line of Afgan. If they play the system adn go get a job then last 1day and sign on again, send them to the front line.

Repeat offenders, send them fcukers to the front line, i'm sure the heroin and crack and all the other fcuking drugs will soon flush out of their system.

Just all bums and dole scrounging scum bags, send them all on National Service and into Iraq. I'm sure the first politician that suggests that will get every single decent human beings vote. They would certainly get mine too.

On another note, a guy who served in the Marines was once a tear away as a youth and turned his life around into a respectable man. He has issued two books that are well worthy of a read. And he is from Hartlepool (Headland in fact) I cant imagine his real name being the one he calls himself in the books

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amongst-Marines ... 1840188529
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Marine-R ... y_b_text_b

Honestly really worthy of a read

Why should chavs and petty criminals be fighting on the front line along side time served soldiers?

The last thing I would want if I had joined up, gone through the basic training and then been sent off to fight, is have some slack jawed gimp along side me!

Just send the scum bags over there and pull the decent soldiers out

I thought we had an army that's considered one of the most efficient in the world exactly because we got rid of National Service while all the other countries were depending on conscripts.

I've read "Amongst the Marines" too and can also recomend it!

I don't think I served with Steven Preece but I think Mr I either knows him or knows of him and doesn't think much of him.

The trouble with todays servicemen is that after 6 months basic training they are sent into battle and half of the time with sub standard equipment.

The hardest bloke I have ever met was a Para who went on to become SAS at the age of 30 he got fed up with Army life saying it was too soft and too many rules, he left and joined the Legion.

Anyone who thinks that National Service is the answer ought to change their newspaper. Yes it worked in the fifties, but so did polio and scabies.

The professional soldier used to get 26 weeks training before they were even considered for active service. Now they get six. They put the terries in and they get even less, they aren't even familiar with their weapon when it gets thrust into their hand.

If you reckon that the solution is to put a bunch of street corner kids into a war situation just to get them killed, then maybe you should think about what the other side will do when they win so easily.

We recently had a Police Inspector convicted for sticking his finger up young offenders bottoms to 'scare them into reality......'

I started this off as an anecdote that made me laugh ...as for National Service today, not practical and not necessary, the average street corner chav has a problem trying to co-ordinate breathing in and out, utterly useless to the forces, besides which, as soon as it was introduced, the liberal establishment would have the 'vapours' and the top of society along with the dregs would develop medical problems that would exclude them
A form of national service with the same rigours but devoted to non military projects like for example building a nature reserve could work, but the 'experts' would 'improve' it and bugger it up.

fucking hell, that would scare anyone

except for Elton John, star of darlo arena.
And Liberace, and maybe Julian Clary.
And Russel Grant
And Russel Hart (ha ha - see what I did there)?

There's quite a few who wouldn't be scared come to think of it

I've read 'Amongst the Marines' and although some of it rings true a lot of it seems much exaggerated and also he seems to have claimed every military urban myth as his own. It's a decent read but its one man's story not that of everyone in the Royal Marines and 3 Commando Brigade.

'Steve Preece' was a punchy bastid, a statement he admits himself. The fact that he got into no end of fights is not unrelated. There are countless other stories of non punchy blokes not getting into fights every night. The truth for most serving in the Corps is somewhere in the middle.

Still, fair play to him, he wore the green lid so he's got something about him and he arrived at 45 Commando just after the Falklands War which would not have been easy and would have made him a bit of an outsider. But when you read the book remember that there is a fair bit of artistic licence involved like most military autobiographies, especially the SAS library (you don't really think that Andy McGrab was anything other than an incompetent arsehole do you?).

Back onto the original point;

I absolutely agree that some kind of National Service should be in place, maybe a twelve month stint rather than two years but I would be against them being sent to Afganistan/Iraq. This is very different from WW1 / WW2 conscription as the country was directly under attack.

Being forced to learn some disciplines and respect is one thing but going to war for a politician is quite another.

So are you suggesting that Thatcher, Churchill etc etc were not politicians?

Of course not, but neither of them were responsible for invading other people's countries. In both cases we went to war for the definitive reason that we had been invaded or were about to be. Oh yes, there's a tenuous point to be made about us being under threat from AQ but thats a problem to be dealt with here not in the mountains of Helmand.

See where you're coming from.

Don't the politicians claim that, with regard to AQ, they are trying to stop AQ at source and not wait for their appearance here before we do anything about them. I suppose it's a fine line.
I don't envy the decision makers on this one cos it appears that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. EG Mugabe etc.

I thought Sloane's book was poor, not a patch on Simon Murray's account of his time in the Legion.

Generally speaking, wars have popular support when we're the good guys. Obviously the winner writes the history but wars where we defend ourselves; WW2/Falklands are 'popular' whereas wars when we are the invaders; Iraq / Afghan / Vietnam for the US are not.

Formerly the definitive textbook for anyone who consider a stint in la Legion Etrangere'. It's a bit outdated now mind you, Algeria was about 40 years ago.

No doubt! Murray, coupled with the fact that he's a great writer, seems a very intelligent bloke and very perceptive of what was going on around him. Sloane's was more of the 'we did this, then we did this' school of writing. Not my type of thing.

I'm yet to be convinced that Al Qaeda are active in the UK. Oh aye there's a bunch of nutters running about here and there with diesel and fertiliser but nowt to convince me that it's organised and International. I mean look at the Glasgow Airport thing. Shambles. And exactly what is their political motive?? Kill all the whiteys??

Bit of a tall order......

I smoked a joint about 18 years ago and had a whitey

me too

apparently it was cos i had a can of john smiths with it

aye the people who "do" spliffs always say that it must have been summat else
I've since drank enough John Smiths to drown an army but never "whitey" -ed again!!!

Now then that's interesting, I Googled Graham Miles and got a load of references to a snooker player; is the difference in the Graeme. Shall try and see what happens.

Ey steady on there our kid, a fellers got to make a living, someone's got to pay for trips to China.