Are you automatically a Hero if you fought in a War?

[the_bob_delusion]

Discuss.

[nevynreally]

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@am*3 wrote:

You have no proof what you claimed is true. Why would you expect others to believe it, just because you claimed it?

The 'friends list' comment, is 100% inaccurate as well. False assumption no 2.

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Yes I do. You on the other hand, don't.

[the_great_she_elephant]

Not, all, or even most, maybe but I'm sure there were some who did. In earlier days (in England) it was called "taking the king's shilling." and this song pretty muchexplains it.( If the rhyme sounds vaguely familiar - think swagmen, billabongs and jolly jumbucks)

A gay Grenadier came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And he sang as he rode through the crowded streets of Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?
  Who'll be a soldier, who'll be a soldier
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me
  And  he  sang  as he marched through  the  crowded  streets  of
     Rochester
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me

"The King he is looking for soldiers for the continent
Strike one last blow to the enemy
And if you'd be a soldier all in your scarlet uniform
Take the King's shilling for Marlboro and me"
   (likewise)

"Not I," said the mason, "Nor I," said the tailor
And most of the crowd with them did agree
"To be rattled by the powder and the cannonball
Wages for soldiers for Marlboro and thee"

"Oh I," said the young man, "I cannot stand the parish queue
No work or wages for the likes of me
Salvation or danger, it shall be my destiny
To seek employment with Marlboro and thee"

So forty new recruits came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And  they  sang as they marched through the  crowded  streets  of
  Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?"

[nevynreally]

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

Not, all, or even most, maybe but I'm sure there were some who did. In earlier days (in England) it was called "taking the king's shilling." and this song pretty muchexplains it.( If the rhyme sounds vaguely familiar - think swagmen, billabongs and jolly jumbucks)

A gay Grenadier came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And he sang as he rode through the crowded streets of Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?
  Who'll be a soldier, who'll be a soldier
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me
  And  he  sang  as he marched through  the  crowded  streets  of
     Rochester
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me

"The King he is looking for soldiers for the continent
Strike one last blow to the enemy
And if you'd be a soldier all in your scarlet uniform
Take the King's shilling for Marlboro and me"
   (likewise)

"Not I," said the mason, "Nor I," said the tailor
And most of the crowd with them did agree
"To be rattled by the powder and the cannonball
Wages for soldiers for Marlboro and thee"

"Oh I," said the young man, "I cannot stand the parish queue
No work or wages for the likes of me
Salvation or danger, it shall be my destiny
To seek employment with Marlboro and thee"

So forty new recruits came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And  they  sang as they marched through the  crowded  streets  of
  Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?"

---

Well there's another fail. Or is it the same one backing itself up?

[nevynreally]

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@am*3 wrote:

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@am*3 wrote:

You have no proof what you claimed is true. Why would you expect others to believe it, just because you claimed it?

---

You are aware that SM wasn't around then? 

Or maybe not.

[the_great_she_elephant]

---

@nevynreally wrote:

---

@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

Not, all, or even most, maybe but I'm sure there were some who did. In earlier days (in England) it was called "taking the king's shilling." and this song pretty muchexplains it.( If the rhyme sounds vaguely familiar - think swagmen, billabongs and jolly jumbucks)

A gay Grenadier came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And he sang as he rode through the crowded streets of Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?
  Who'll be a soldier, who'll be a soldier
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me
  And  he  sang  as he marched through  the  crowded  streets  of
     Rochester
  Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me

"The King he is looking for soldiers for the continent
Strike one last blow to the enemy
And if you'd be a soldier all in your scarlet uniform
Take the King's shilling for Marlboro and me"
   (likewise)

"Not I," said the mason, "Nor I," said the tailor
And most of the crowd with them did agree
"To be rattled by the powder and the cannonball
Wages for soldiers for Marlboro and thee"

"Oh I," said the young man, "I cannot stand the parish queue
No work or wages for the likes of me
Salvation or danger, it shall be my destiny
To seek employment with Marlboro and thee"

So forty new recruits came marching down through Rochester
Bound for the wars in the low countries
And  they  sang as they marched through the  crowded  streets  of
  Rochester
"Who'll be a soldier for Marlboro and me?"

---

Well there's another fail. Or is it the same one backing itself up?

---

Ummm . . . . . I was actually agreeing with you Nevyn. Men have been 'taking the king's shilling," ever since it was first offered, and there is no reason to suppose some Australians didn't sign on for the money. Even heroes are not always driven by pure alruism - John Simpson Kirkpatrick is thought to have signed up primarily as a way of getting a free trip back to england.

[nevynreally]

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

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Ummm . . . . . I was actually agreeing with you Nevyn. Men have been 'taking the king's shilling," ever since it was first offered, and there is no reason to suppose some Australians didn't sign on for the money. Even heroes are not always driven by pure alruism - John Simpson Kirkpatrick is thought to have signed up primarily as a way of getting a free trip back to england.

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Sorry. 

I've had a week or two of people shoving **bleep** in my face. I know what I know. I may not have C & P's to back them up, but that doesn't make them less true.

I was going to point out your post was about Queen Anne's reign, then I realised I'd get all "WHO?"

[punch*drunk]

I think the reasons for joining were many and varied. My grandfather joined the navy because it seemed a better life than working in the brassworks with "a small paypacket and a grouchy foreman". We werent actually at war then, but not far from it.

My MIL seems to believe her uncle enlisted for WW1 because people thought him a coward when other men from his town had joined up and he hadnt. He wasnt a well person, only a small fellow and suffered from asthma, he died from Bronchitis only a couple of weeks after going to the front.

My husbands great grandfather and 2 of his brothers shipped off together in 1915, they had all been in rifle corps (I think thats what it was called) so they probably thought it was their duty to go. They seemed to start at a higher rank than other newly enlisted men, I guess that was a benefit of their earlier training. One of them never came back.

My great grandfather was a sailor in England before coming to Australia in 1911, he signed up and served in France in WW1 and then at the ripe old age of 55 tried to re-enlist for WW2. They wouldnt let him go overseas in WW2 though. I think his motivation for joining in WW1 would have been the money. I think life was pretty tough for them when they first arrived in Australia.

Regardless of their individual motivations for joining, they are still heroes to me.

[this-one-time-at-bandcamp]

I think it was the other way round:

Then how do you explain England's diplomatic efforts to get Germany and Russia to the conference table?  Or are you suggesting that there were no actual treaty obligations?  England declared war only after Germany violated Belgium's neutrality by invading.  Read your history.

[lane-ends]

They signed up out of naievity, they were sold tales of grand adventure, in effect conned into it. Once there they found themselves in survival mode.

Now people sign up for a career knowing they are not going to have their lives thrown away in the manner of WW1.

The only way anyone would sign up if they knew the needless slaughter that was going to happen in WW1 would be those who were conned into it or outright suicidal zealots.

There had never been massed slaugther on the scale of WW1 before, no one had a clue what was going to happen, and when it happened it was covered up so as not to discourage others from signing up.

[softail-joanie]

Id say no.. A war can bring out the hero in many people but it's just as likely to bring out bad qualities...    lt depends on cercumstances. a hero to some could be villan to others.

The most heroic person i can think of was William Rodrigious, a janitor at the world trade center when it collapsed. Not only durring the tragody taking place, but long after, the risks he took in going up against eliments of government and the industral military complex when exposing the truth about how the buildings collapsed. A true hero in so many diffrent ways