The Cheapening Of Heroism...
Some topics I just know are going to piss some people off before I even start to write about them. It's particularly bad when I know people are going to get pissed off for the wrong reason.
This is one of those topics. In an effort to avoid the above, please accept from the start, this is NOT about the heroism of the people who lost their lives in the incident I'm about to refer to, but the media's use of heroism as a tool.
Recently a number of people serving in Afghanistan were flown home after losing their lives in an horrific helicopter crash. It was the largest 'single incident' loss of life of military personnel for UK forces since the Falklands war.
The crash was nothing whatever to do with enemy action. So why is it that when such an incident occurs, one would think we are witnessing the return home of mighty heroes slain in pursuit of some lofty freedom or other from the way the media presents it?
Yes, these people would not have been in Afghanistan were it not for military reasons, but if someone had died choking on a chicken bone in the mess hut would that also be treated with the same level of drama?
People who die in crashes or any other circumstances are not heroes simply because they died. It cheapens the word when there are plenty of people in the world who still deserve to have it applied to them.
And Mum Does Not Always Know Best......
The incident gave some TV stations the chance to roll out a mother of a serving paratrooper, recently shot in the conflict (the paratrooper, not his mother). She gladly gave us her opinions on why our boys should come home and the fact that no-one knows why our boys are still there being shot at.
I really fail to see the link between the two stories, other than a chance for a TV station to inject a little 'political comment' of it's own making.
We live in a country where joining the military is done with complete freedom of choice. Part of serving in the military means acceptance of the fact that you go where you are told, and do what you are told. I for one would not want an army protecting me, in which any given trooper decided to hang up his rifle and go home because he didn't fancy being in this particular fight. That Para has a tough job to do. It's the job he accepted when he signed on. It's the job we paid him for, regardless of his political opinions.
Or those of his mum.
This is one of those topics. In an effort to avoid the above, please accept from the start, this is NOT about the heroism of the people who lost their lives in the incident I'm about to refer to, but the media's use of heroism as a tool.
Recently a number of people serving in Afghanistan were flown home after losing their lives in an horrific helicopter crash. It was the largest 'single incident' loss of life of military personnel for UK forces since the Falklands war.
The crash was nothing whatever to do with enemy action. So why is it that when such an incident occurs, one would think we are witnessing the return home of mighty heroes slain in pursuit of some lofty freedom or other from the way the media presents it?
Yes, these people would not have been in Afghanistan were it not for military reasons, but if someone had died choking on a chicken bone in the mess hut would that also be treated with the same level of drama?
People who die in crashes or any other circumstances are not heroes simply because they died. It cheapens the word when there are plenty of people in the world who still deserve to have it applied to them.
And Mum Does Not Always Know Best......
The incident gave some TV stations the chance to roll out a mother of a serving paratrooper, recently shot in the conflict (the paratrooper, not his mother). She gladly gave us her opinions on why our boys should come home and the fact that no-one knows why our boys are still there being shot at.
I really fail to see the link between the two stories, other than a chance for a TV station to inject a little 'political comment' of it's own making.
We live in a country where joining the military is done with complete freedom of choice. Part of serving in the military means acceptance of the fact that you go where you are told, and do what you are told. I for one would not want an army protecting me, in which any given trooper decided to hang up his rifle and go home because he didn't fancy being in this particular fight. That Para has a tough job to do. It's the job he accepted when he signed on. It's the job we paid him for, regardless of his political opinions.
Or those of his mum.
posted by Stevie at 4:58 pm
1 Comments:
Yeah, the news can be a wank sometimes, but you have to face it -you're an old cynic.Not always a bad thing by any means.
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