I do not call myself a pacifist, my great grandfather was a pacifist, he would rather be beaten and his family’s income stolen than actual defend himself. That takes guts and strength of will. I am not saying I do not have it, but I do not feel that until there you genuinely know your will. So I would say I have pacifist tendencies, but they have never been tested when it counts.
However, when I hear stories such as American Soldiers on Food Stamps I find myself getting angry. While that anger comes out of my pacifist tendencies, it is not an anger at the soldiers. It is anger at the hypocrisy of a society that can applaud men one minute and yet once they are demobbed will leave them to their plight. The world has not changed much since Rudyard Kipling wrote Tommy.
So let me say this now. I believe it is wrong for a country to ask young men and women to do the tasks that they ask people in the army, navy and airforce. I believe that war is best avoided because of what it will cost and often than cost is born by the most vulnerable. This is not an argument against nuclear war, the number of children who die in conventional warfare is high. Some of the deeds done are horrendous. The US authorised the bombing of maternity hospitals in Africa twenty years ago so that the regime could not provide better facilities for women than had happened under British colonialism because it was communist. Do not worry the English invented concentration camps during the Boer War. War leads all nations to behave in vile ways.
However, it is one thing that says that war is not something we should plan for. It is another thing altogether to hold the soldiers who serve as responsible for these vile things they are ordered to do in our name. In many ways, they are as much a victim of war as the children who get killed by a stray bullet. We ask of them what we could not do ourselves, what we are not prepared to do ourselves. In the process of doing so, many come back with injuries both physical and mental that makes integrating into normal civilian life difficult. Indeed there is a sense in which the military, having its own code of behaviour, can institutionalise soldiers and make their return to civilian life difficult even without a disability.
Now if we ask people to do this. I know the government does, not me personally, but the government does on our behalf. Then I see as a basic quid pro quo, that we have a responsibility to look after them. In other words, when a young person signs up to join the services the nation takes responsibility for making sure they are cared for, not just while they serve, but for their life. Often that also includes responsibility for the family as well.
So I will not be there out cheering on the soldiers on parade, may well campaign against various wars and choose not to wear a red poppy. However, I will not be among those who berate soldiers, I will donate to charities that aim to look after them, and if ever there comes the opportunity to vote for better conditions for ex-servicemen and women, they can count on my vote.
I would rather they were not asked to serve, but given that they are, it is the least we can do.
