the military
- Thread starter don_quixote
- Start date
sufi
lala
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...-agency-bosses-have-died-in-action-mr-woolas/
immigration and nationality martyrs brigade
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i hear ya on this very important issue wrt our tabloids etc but how many public servants put themselves in harm's way to the extent a soldier does every day?
many of my mates are public servants and i know teachers get assaulted, i know revenue office contact centre front-desk people get assaulted, i know police officers and firefighters (a leonine calling, clearly) and hospital personnel have it rough, and i quite agree it is a national disgrace how some of our tabloids manufacture outrage wrt some of the public sector, but at least the press are on the govt's back about relative lack of post-conflict support for de-mobbed soldiers etc, and if one way to keep feeding this is the somewhat simplistic diefication, then i say keep it coming.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
- norfolk virginia -
i met a gorgeous businesswoman from there in Dublin last year, so, on that solipsistic basis, i call Norfolk alright
they pronounce it a bit different to the good old English county i note, accents, fascinating stuff
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Soldiers are not public servants.
I see plenty of soldiers from every branch in DC. Always with a grim look on their face. Think that's the nature of the soldiers stationed here, more the careerist type (like everyone in DC) than the people who just want college tuition/healthcare.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
my apologies, i meant w specific regard to the British Army, who are managed by the UK govt agency the MoD and so are hence a public body.
clearly the likes of nurses and teachers have far greater impact on UK society, granted.
clearly the likes of nurses and teachers have far greater impact on UK society, granted.
A guy i used to know, was a pub bouncer in Aldershot until he got glassed in the face, Totally fearless bloke, kick boxing champ but that made him give it up.
Yeah military towns, union street in Plymouth is a classic deathtrap, Navy one end, Army the Other, military police on constant watch, the two alleys that run on either side of it are just brothels.
I thought about joining the army once, what a thought that was!
Yeah military towns, union street in Plymouth is a classic deathtrap, Navy one end, Army the Other, military police on constant watch, the two alleys that run on either side of it are just brothels.
I thought about joining the army once, what a thought that was!
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one of my best friends from highschool was court martialed from the Marines for, long story short, refusing to sign away his DNA as property of the US government, and leading a petition and movement against the then new practice. i'm unclear on the details but the legal battles were long and bitter... last i heard he is now a noise musician with a long beard (back to the man i knew and loved)
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
do you know what year that was, roughly? I wonder if he was part of the Mayfield v. Dalton lawsuit. it's been mandatory since the early 90s that every service member provide a DNA sample. they're mainly used for identification of combat casualties in situations where fingerprints &/or dental records won't suffice but there is a kinda dubious special exception clause - enacted by Congress, not the military, following a rape at Fort Hood in 2002 - that allows the sample to be used for identification in prosecution of a felony or a non-felony sexual offense. in the lawsuit 2 Marines refused to give samples b/c they were afraid they might used to find risks for certain diseases & so on - which was never allowed under USMC policy (& which is explicity illegal following the GINA bill last yr). neither of them was, AFAIK, court-martialed. the case kinda simmered out cause they both went off active-duty & thus were no longer required to provide DNA samples. I don't know about a "movement" against it, but as a result of the case you can now have your DNA sample destroyed upon leaving the military.
I don't really have a problem w/any of it so long as everyone's clear about it going in. it makes sense for the military to have a DNA repository. I'm not crazy about the special exception clause but OTOH if you're not committing felonies or sexual assault you don't have anything to worry about.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
no, he's right, soldiers still aren't public servants under that definition. the U.S. military is overseen by the DoD but civil service is specifically defined as everyone working for the government who's not in the military. it's the same in the UK, although you guys use the term "public/civil servant" informally a bit more broadly I think.
anyway, it was kind of a silly point to begin with b/c no one goes around comparing - detrimentally or otherwise - firefighters or nurses or even bureaucrats to soldiers.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
ha! i actually PM'ed Gavin to apologise for being a cock semantics wise, as i was only playing that out w specific regard to some of the UK tabloids (and didn't mean to explicitly make such a unsubtle analogy but y'all know my phrasing is sometimes a bit messy), who do actually routinely vilify teachers, bureaucrats, etc and will often attempt to shut down debates about unions etc w an aside about 'look at our boys in Afghanistan, now you shut up, you greedy pinko' (not too far from the actual commentary in the Express and Mail in particular, tbh)
one recent example of this is the cash pot shared in bonuses among loads of Security Service personnel, the fact that most of the dough consisted of sweeteners going to junior analysts pegging between about £16K and into the 20's etc (and most have to be based in London, hardly the cheapest city on earth) didn't figure into the manufactured outrage (and they really were going to town on it) from our Middle England sirens
very interesting wrt Mayfield v Dalton
my friend is Mayfield... i guess i remembered wrong they faced court martial but then took another route or something....
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
no you may be right - they may have initiated the lawsuit to avoid facing court martial (as they were refusing a direct order when they declined to give a DNA sample). big hassle either way, I'm sure. I dunno everything about it, I just have a friend in law school who mentioned the case to me after I started talking to the USMC. the policy about DNA samples was enacted in, I think, '93, so I'm guessing your friend enlisted prior to that. small world & all that, anyway.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
wow, that's nuts. certainly soldiers are routinely praised, and bureaucrats & unions among others vilified, in the U.S., but not in direct comparison to each other. that's actually a rather bizarre line of thought, not that one would expect flawless logic from right-wing British tabloids, I guess. esp. as the war is so deeply unpopular in the UK.
I guess that's kind of the flipside of the stereotyping soldiers as stupid & thuggish - holding them up as idealized paragons of virtue to satisfy or political agendas. the latter is, I think, even worse than the former b/c it's so exploitative & ultimately cynical.
