Sad Commentary
Diss this uniform, would you? UPDATED below.
Brits compelled to have a policy debate over whether soldiers and airmen should be encouraged to wear their uniforms in public.
They stopped because of the IRA threat. Now it’s the threat of peacenik violence. They’re studying how the public in the United States, Canada and France treat their military (check Germany … they’re fattening them up. It’s a no-heavy lifting job).
Waiting around for respect from people who don’t respect themselves is a fool’s errand. Here’s an idea. Let tommies carry their weapons while in uniform. Cavalry sabres, Webley revolvers dangling from cords, Brown Bess muskets with long nasty triangular bayonets. The lancers can carry their lances. Fusiliers, their … fusils. Pikes and halbreds. Whatever the heck they are using these days. Authorize them to give snotty violent Brit scum who menace the Queen’s men and women a poke. Could go a long way toward overall improvement of society. Hang on, here’s a better idea. Press gangs. Reduce the welfare rolls and reintroduce respect for the Crown at the same time.
Germany, by the way, is mulling a decoration for bravery. Opportunities for bravery in the Bundeswehr are sharply limited, as the German people ruefully eyeing history do not trust themselves to behave responsibly in the world. Also because the flattening of their country after the last time resulted in one of the most remarkable cultural shifts history has ever seen. Spike-topped sausage-scarfing siegheiling nation became a nation of peacenik greens.
The Iron Cross is off the table, though. Too much of its 132-year history is tied up in you know what. Bits of France and Russia that Germany had no business in, mainly. Conservative MP thinks the Bundeswehr’s traditional curvy-edged Maltese cross emblem – without the uncompromising straight rules and sharp elbows that got Germany into so much trouble last time — is a “sign of help and solidarity” from the Balkans to the Hindu Kush. Ernst-Reinhardt Beck … now that’s a good 88mm German name if I ever heard one … wants to reinstate the Iron Cross as a badge of honor. The Bundeswehr has rejected that, even though every armored vehicle and aircraft they have is sporting one. Crosses in general are probably out in this enlightened age. Not inclusive enough. The Tin Gong of Non-Committal Earnestness with dove and crossed palms device might work. But howzabout a nod to the New Germany. The Copper Crescent of Capitulation, set on a sort of radiating bomb-blast pattern.
This will no doubt be a long process for Germany. I’d suggest the first step is to reinstitute a national backbone. The Hindu Kush is a great place to start. A little more “help and solidarity” please.
Jimbo’s suggestion re verbally abusive punk ass civilians here.
North Shore Journal with a RAF pilot who just earned a DFC … first female to do so. On her third tour in Iraq.
BecksH makes a good point in comments. We’re not exactly immune to the hostility here.
And points to Baby M for a good Kipling grab.
Topics: Britain, Germans, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:31 am on Friday, March 7, 2008
12 Responses to “Sad Commentary”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:49 am
“The uniform ban was imposed by the station commander at RAF Wittering, near Peterborough, after a number of servicemen and women walking in the city in their military clothes were targeted because of their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
If we ever get in a real war, these guys aren’t going to back us up, and neither are any of our other so-called allies in Europe. It’s time for Americans to wake up and realize that our interventionist policies initiated and carried out by leftist fools like Woody Wilson and FDR didn’t serve our interests and neither does the alliance system they or their successors created after the second world war.
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to domestic nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”–G. Washington
It was true then, it was true in the 20th century and it’s still true now.
The only thing screwing around in Europe and Asia has bought us is hundreds of thousands of dead, endless treasure expended and a bunch of allies who not only aren’t going to honor their alliances, if push comes to shove, but actually hate our guts.
Bottom line: Listen to George Washington. He knew what he was talking about. Ignore leftist idiots who can’t resist meddling in Old World affairs. Pull, out of NATO and the U.N. now.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I spent a key part of my childhood growing up in Germany in the mid 70’s, and even after 30 years the scars from WWII ran deep - right down into the third generation. Like all children they wanted to assert themselves, but also faced waves of guilt for any nationalistic thought whatsoever. From this it sounds like they still haven’t quite figured out how to reconcile their past with who they have become, but at least they’re trying, a little.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:59 am
With the ongoing campaign of terror against military recruiters here in the US, we’ll be lucky if our own soldiers are willing to defend us anymore.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
The troops will defend us but they’ll have extremely hard feelings toward the press. If the press suddenly finds themselves being embedded with a special ‘platoon for the press’ so that the military can keep the average troop away from the reporters, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
That was my thought after ‘Nam. If the brass had put a reporter in my unit for any reason I would have refused to take them or protect them. I didn’t trust them at all. Still don’t, except for individuals. The problem that’s created is that I recognize the necessity for their being there but understand that the occupational culture that’s been created by them is against the military.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
There was a time in this country when military personnel had to wear their uniforms unless they were home on leave, and even then they had to travel in uniform. Servicemen hitchhiked across the country with the assurance that, not only would they be assured of a ride, but they also usually had their meals paid for. Viet Nam changed all that. It became dangerous for servicemen to wear their uniforms off base, and so the rules changed. I was never so ashamed of my country as when that happened. Now we have the spectacle of our recruiting stations attacked by city councils, bombs and the boobs in pink. Shameful.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Kipling said it best a century ago:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit. . . .
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
well its Tommie this and Tommie that
and chuck ‘im out the Brute
But it’s “Saviour of his Country”
when the guns begin to shoot.
I was an NROTC student at a Berkeley wannabe in the early ’70’s. We had to stop wearing uniforms for a while due to potential violence from the “peace” crowd. Figure that one out: the peaceniks were the violent ones and the ones training to defend the country avoided violence due to their discipline and general demeanor. First time I figured out that something wasn’t quite right with that whole left wing sharing and caring thing, and despite having come from a family of centrist Democrats, it was the origin of some right wing biases I should probably take medication for.
I felt prouder and was treated nicer in my uniform in Australia than I ever did most places in California.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:24 am
V of the C: Are you talking about the brotherhood and love crowd that burned our cities and took over our campuses? I also noticed that the louder they shouted about flower-power and love, the greater the anarchy and destruction in our own country. I never talked to anyone who would admit that fact, even though it filled our television screens every night.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
That would be them salty. And at the end of the day the folks who chanted “nazi, ROTC, government spy” were the real big government types. Which is mildy humorous to me now for some reason.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:28 am
> It’s time for Americans to wake up and realize that our interventionist policies initiated and carried out by leftist fools like Woody Wilson and FDR didn’t serve our interests and neither does the alliance system they or their successors created after the second world war.
Gimme a break. What, the USA should have ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany? Let them take over all of Europe, conquer Russia and the UK? THEN, after they’d gotten access to all those resources, both human AND material, stand there glaring at them while waiting for them to build up the power to have actually taken us on and won?
What are you, a moron?
—BECAUSE GERMANY HAD IT—
The entry of the USA into the war was a key point of significance, but I will guarantee you that it truly was RUSSIA which broke their backs. The two successive marches into Russia — Moscow and Stalingrad — cost Germany most of its best-trained tankers and soldiers. It also distracted them from Africa. By the time of Normandy, the German Army was a fraction of the skill and talent level which it had in 1940. And that made a huge difference in just about everything which followed. It cost Russia **20 MILLION** people.
Not to denigrate in any way the USA’s involvement — Russia badly needed the industrial help we gave them, and could not have succeeded without it — the notion that isolationism would have been a rational course of action is, in the words of Pauli: “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong”.
In other words, it’s flat out STUPID.
Isolationism worked in the 1800s — because of two main things:
a) We had little worth taking
b) There were these two really really big MOATS on either side of the nation to make attacking us exceedingly difficult with the tech of the times.
Both those truths have changed —
I) Not only are we the wealthiest but the biggest and baddest — and EVERYONE would like the street cred involved in smacking us a good one and getting away with it.
II) And those moats have, with modern technology, shrunken greatly in size to the point where they can no longer be rationally considered as an effective element of any defense.
Point I is particularly relevant because it means that we don’t have to do ANYTHING to them in order to make them want to attack us. They’ll do it JUST FOR THE RESPECT it would command from others. No one took Al Queda all that seriously on 9/10/01 — It goes without saying that EVERYONE took them seriously on 9/12/01.
And point II is inherently obvious to all but the congenital idiot given 9/11 as an object lesson. The moats no longer matter. You don’t even need a government’s resources to wreak massive havoc any more — just a good plan from an unexpected direction.
Should we trust or depend on our European allies? HELL NO. But to imagine that we can ignore them or what happens there (or anywhere else in the world, for that matter) any more is so flat-out stupid as to suggest that anyone advocating the idea is to be ignored at best (and that the gene pool would be greatly improved by taking them out back and shooting them in the head, regardless of how distasteful that action may be).
Are you planning on having any kids? Cause, you know, that moron thing — you might want to reconsider.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:35 am
> Kipling said it best a century ago:
Nice piece. Shows this isn’t a new thing but a common thing in a nation in decline. *sigh*
March 10th, 2008 at 2:37 am
> Which is mildy humorous to me now for some reason.
Humor is all about the disconnect, ol’ bean. Think about it.