My boy wants to join the army.any advice please.

[Bruce_Shark]

However much the recruiting adverts make it look just like a video game where you have unlimited lives, the army is all about killing people. Killing people because they belong to a different country or have a different coluor skin to you. And every time a british soldier kills someone that means some child loses a father, a wife loses a husband and a mother loses a son. Is that anything to be proud of?

 

It's about being told what to do and just mindlessly following orders. There's nothing glamourous about being sent to interfere in another country's internal conflicts and getting blown up in a conflict that is none of more about capitalism and oil than freedom.

 

If I had a son who wanted to join the army I would urge him not to. If he wants to make the world a better place I would tell him to find a career that involved saving people's lives rather than taking them. And if he then ignoring my advice and joined the army anyway I would disown him.

 

ID10T

 

(and, no, I don't work for the DVLA)

[the_rudeboy]

My stepson fancies the army but his mum is dead against it because of the deaths in the Gulf War and Afghanistan etc.

 

But I keep telling her he wouldn't hack the basic training so not to worry.

[discodown]

Like everything there are pluses and minuses.

 

on the one hand he might love it, he could learn a trade, make great friends, have interesting tattoo's and he'll really be a part of something. the army is and always has been one of the great working class escapes (along with football and boxing) and that won't change.

 

On the other hand theres a chance you might have to go to Wooton Bassett to see the bits of him that make it home.

[valleylad]

tell him to join a regiment where he can learn a good trade, the royal signals for example will train him up to use the latest technology so when he comes out he will have a good set of qualifications, or the r e m e will train him in mechanics to a high standard

 

The army apprentice collage Arborfield (R.E.M.E) CLOSED years ago. I did my mechanics training there in the sixties, back then the army trained various skills from road construction to aircraft technicians.

[Tshombe]

I wouldnt want to stop him doing anything he wants to do, but as a parent, and with what is going on at the moment its a little concerning dont you think? Especially at 16, when you hear of all these young kids at 17, 18 been killed.

I don't think you'll see 17 year olds being killed.

[Tshombe]

However much the recruiting adverts make it look just like a video game where you have unlimited lives, the army is all about killing people. Killing people because they belong to a different country or have a different coluor skin to you. And every time a british soldier kills someone that means some child loses a father, a wife loses a husband and a mother loses a son. Is that anything to be proud of?

 

It's about being told what to do and just mindlessly following orders. There's nothing glamourous about being sent to interfere in another country's internal conflicts and getting blown up in a conflict that is none of more about capitalism and oil than freedom.

 

If I had a son who wanted to join the army I would urge him not to. If he wants to make the world a better place I would tell him to find a career that involved saving people's lives rather than taking them. And if he then ignoring my advice and joined the army anyway I would disown him.

 

I you were my father I'd disown you! What a plonker.

[Tshombe]

If you join the army can you guarantee from the start that you won't end up with someone pointing a gun at you? Do you just have to sign up and then see what happens or can you apply for specific positions from the start?

You cannot guarentee what job/trade you will do on enlistment, I joined up into an infantry regiment, when they found out that I was a guitarist I was invited to join the regimental band.

Had I declined on gone into a company I would have been sent to Aden where I would have seen action, I chose the music and enjoyed a 2 year honeymoon in beautiful Cyprus. I also attended 'Knellar Hall' The Royal Military School Of Music.

Three of my nephews have served in the army and RAF in recent years none of them would have missed it.

My view is let him go for it.

[John X]

Tell him not to!

 

John X

[Alien]

You cannot guarentee what job/trade you will do on enlistment, I joined up into an infantry regiment, when they found out that I was a guitarist I was invited to join the regimental band.

Had I declined on gone into a company I would have been sent to Aden where I would have seen action, I chose the music and enjoyed a 2 year honeymoon in beautiful Cyprus. I also attended 'Knellar Hall' The Royal Military School Of Music.

Three of my nephews have served in the army and RAF in recent years none of them would have missed it.

My view is let him go for it.

 

 

.....they immediately thought. What a weapon! You can play the enemy to death.

[Alastair]

I would advise against it. As a parent you wouldn't want your son involved in the war we are fighting against Afghanistan and the risk of him being injured or worse. Even if he came back physically unscathed he would very likely be mentally scarred.

 

And would you want him fighting in a pointless war for no reason? We shouldn't still be waging war on Afghanistan and there's no way we will win anyway. No one has before and in the days of the British Empire we learnt the lesson to leave Afghanistan alone to its own primitive mediaeval ways. It looks like we have to learn that lesson all over again.