Why would anyone join the army?

An interesting report from the BBC reveals that the army is currently suffering from serious problems relating to desertion. The question I find myself asking is that why would anyone want to join a modern army in the first place? in the old days, recruitment of paid troops was simple. If obligation didnot provide all of the necessary troops for an army, there were always large partsof society who were too restless, too dangerous, too violent and too unscrupulous to exist even within the confines of a medieval society. Such people made useless farmers and townsfolk, but when given a wage, excellent mercenaries. Indeed, in many ways, it was the perfect deal. The mercenaries had a relatively free hand to rape, pillage and plunder until they had sated even the most brutal of their desires, society got to remove some of its most troublesome elements to elsewhere and inevitably had people to call upon when utterly despicable acts, such as the brutal destruction of the Italian town of Cesena, needed to be committed.

In contrast, the modern army appears to be an anachronism. The country needs to be defended, but  as a society we abhor violence.  A patriotic urge to fight for your country is all well and good, but how does that help  when one has to commit the violent acts of killing which are inevitably a part of fighting for one's country?  Certainly, such a question isn't, answered by the army's recruitment programme. You would be hard pressed,  looking at the glossy Army advertising, to gain any understanding of the dark side of soldiery - The advertisements make soldiering seem like an adventure holiday or some sort of  'xtreme' sporting excursion. The fact is, It shouldn't be "The British Army: Be the Best", it should be "The British Army: Kill lots of people".  If you don't advertise one of the most important parts of the job, is it any wonder that people begin to fall apart when they realise that it isn't all abseiling and team building exercises? As the news has shown us time and time again recently, there are certainly individuals who are callous enough to have no problems with killing people, even innocents. Why do we waste time paying to lock such individuals up when we could have them killing on our behalf? Oh, thats right, we've taken away all of the things that make soldiering fun - Crap pay, No looting, no pillaging, no ability to change sides etc.  As a consequence  we appear to be in a bit of a no-man's land. Too much order and discipline to attract societies most vile bastards, to much blood, guts and horror to be a long term career for more sensitive souls.

Mind you, you can't really blame the soldiers for suffering from stress. They are seriously let down by those in authority and by the fundamentally broken nature of modern warfare. If Mercenaries of the old world were untrustworthy, it was generally because the leaders of mercenary bands would not allow their employer to place them in situations where they would face  certain death. Nowadays, the army is not led by a commander on the battlefield, but by a politician in Whitehall. The objectives the soldiers have to meet are political, not military. Thus, thanks to the wonders of the modern world, we have a modern, state-of-the-art sheafing its weapons, giving away its absolute advantage so that its men can be picked off one-by-one by the enemy. Our soldiers lives are sacrificed for the shortest of short-term political gain.

technorati tags:army, mercenaries, bbc, panorama, military, medieval, gang, killings

What does the History Channel do when it isn't discussing 'Toenail Clipping Collections of the Nazis'? It lies about the Middle Ages, that's what it does.

So, not content with urinating over the last 50 years of Crusade scholarship, the history channel have turned their attentions to a new period: 'The Dark Ages'. Unfortunately, at the moment i only have the trailer at my disposal to guage just how terrible this show obviously is. Fortunately, the 'making of' trailer contains enough abominations to keep me fuming for...all... a good 5 hours at least.

Indeed, it would appear that all director Christopher Cassel has to do in order to feel my wrath is open his stupid flappy mouth. 'like, dude, Some people say there were no Dark Ages' says Chris,sounding like some kind of heinous Bill and Ted reject. Yes Chris. In fact, this view is shared by most people who've actually bothered to read any decent academic text produced after about 1950. Silly humanists aside, the term Dark Ages was used for describing the Early Middle ages in Northern Europe because, quite literally, it was shrouded in darkness.  Historians did not have access to the large volume of Latin Texts which were produced in other places/periods, and archaeologists had not found and fully exploited many key discoveries, such as Sutton Hoo, which have since helped to shape our understanding of the Early Middle Ages. Indeed, for the last forty years, history and archeology have been able to pull their resources with fascinating results - far from a 'backwards' age of violence, it is clear that, in Northern Europe at least, important improvements were made in areas such as agriculture. Even if there was a period which could be classified as the 'Dark Ages', it was also certainly long over by the eleventh century ( Carolingian Renaissance, yeah.)

Who knows, perhaps your author is being rash and the programme is in fact  a medieval jewel in a vast vat of World War 2 related shit. If this is the case, these people really need to sort out their promotional material.

technorati tags:Carolingian, renaissance, history, channel, early, middle, ages, sutton, hoo, dark, ages