Wars and ConflictsΜύ permalink
Why join up?
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by vesturiiis (U13688567) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Many people I know or heard of joined the services in World War 1 & 2. My question is Why.They were leaving to a great unknown, from the idyllic prairies of central Canada to endanger themsleves in others conflicts and would we or our sons do the same today?
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Message 2
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
vesturiiis
If you are interested solely in the motivation of Canadian soldiers, for WWI I would recommend Pierre Berton's "Vimy".
LW -
Message 3
Posted by petaluma (U10056951) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
vesturiiis, something that comes over many 18 year old males in wartime, seems many wished to take part. Note 17 and 18 years of age best time to indoctrinate, males very pliable plus with the thought, 'I won't die'. Unsure of males today maybe better educated with a broader view of life, difficult to say.
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Message 4
Posted by vesturiiis (U13688567) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
thank-you for your comments I actually had an answer first hand from my father who joined the Cdn Navy in 1942. He said peer pressure in his small Manitoba town of Riverton was the tipping point-everyone was involved one way or another.It is complicated when the enemy is not next door and your family business (farming, flying, construction, etc... put a crimp on decisions. Alson incredible stories surface about trappers leaving their lines and travelling 50miles (cabins left unlocked) to do thier duty, just very proud to call them neighbours!!!
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Message 5
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
In 1914 you can put it down to naivity and a yearning for adventure. 1939 would have involved a more mature evaluation that this was a worthy cause, all tied up with the imperialist outlook that peremeated education, the press and all popular culture at that time, leading to an assumption that the 'Mother Country' in need was deserving of such unquestioning loyalty, and not just from those of 'British Stock' as they would have said at the time.
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Message 6
Posted by petaluma (U10056951) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
vesturiiis, in elementary school in Wales in the 30s discussing the English speaking Empire were told that Australia was part of the Empire because of trade and military alignment, however we were told that Canada was not that connected as trade with the USA plus military aid if so needed and it was a mystery of Canada's allegiance to Britain as Canada could live quite well without it.
We were told of children's affinity to Britain in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, myself I thought even as a child their own country should be foremost in their minds, in later years a New Zealander told me they looked to Britain as the Mother Country and seemed always in their thoughts and this after several generations still strong. I certainly did not express my thoughts regarding immigrants from Britain and later children with their affinity to Britain.
For the War, Britain declared War on Germany its not as if she needed defending, granted just my thoughts. -
Message 7
Posted by caveman1944 (U11305692) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Why JOin Up ?
In spite of my noting the volumes of THe Great WIr, with the pictures being enough, all was forgotten with the excitement of war. A young man's boredom with life ? A means of escape?
The influence of a family with a military history, albeit in a time of peace initially?
May I turn to those who were less keen and some comparisons?
Owing to a situation i found on repatriation, I late in life decided to enquire of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Front. I discovered a person my age who had been exempt as a railway worker, and at age 21, he was learning to dance. he would have a wage and perhaps not lumbered with a dependant relative as was I.
At age 17, I worked in a shop for seventeen shillings and six pence. I quit that and earned
Β£ 3/15/- of which my mother got the Β£3.
I started in the army at 14/6d working up in training to my shop wage of 17/6d !!
Alack and alas, I made an allowance of seven shillings to my relative, which was made up to 25/-( 25 shillings ) So we both lost out.
So, I flog it as a Jap POW on 10/6d a week.
Just a little less than the dancer who would be earning Β£4, or more with overtime? Hmm, do you know I got Β£86 back pay for 3 1/2 years ? THat I didn't have a pint of beer , only a half pint?
All is not equal in war, a point I made on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Memoryshare.
It doesn't stop there though. Picture WW1,
the slaughter and misery, and in each bullet and each shell and each death there is PROFIT.
John -
Message 8
Posted by NICK (U1182021) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Hi
To answer your question Why Join Up well I can
tell you why I joined up and that was in January
1940 I volunteered with two of my mates for the
simple reason we were Bored, there were black
outs'rationing' and all the lads of eighteen who
were our mates had been called up so the local
football teams had folded' there was simply nothing to do except one night a week Cinema so
one day we decided to volunteer for the NAVY,
one of us was excepted' one was two young and I
was told that I could sign on being under age
and they would send for me,Iwas 17and a half when
sent for me.I was in the action that finished off
the mighty Bismark three Malta convoys the landings at Madagascar and the Normandy Landings
and I would go through it all again-I am now 87 -
Message 9
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Friday, 6th March 2009
ivy and nick
good posts - but how about giving us some tales
what happened when and how
st -
Message 10
Posted by petaluma (U10056951) on Friday, 6th March 2009
vesturiiis, I heard but with no official confirmation that during WW2 only Canadians that volunteered for the Armed Forces were sent overseas, if conscripted served in Canada. In Australia the men there volunteered to fight in the Boer War even taking their own horses with them, I was told this by an elderly Australian. Seems the Australians are always ready to fight, British forces in Korea said the Australians seemed to have no fear and attacked with gusto, just as if in a game.
Seemed the norm in Britain during WW1, any likely male youth were sent a White Feather a sign of a coward if they were not in H.M. Forces, even during WW2 many young men were vilified if not in uniform, some even those with no visible sign of injuries who had been invalided out owing to War injuries. -
Message 11
Posted by NICK (U1182021) on Saturday, 7th March 2009
You ask for tales ' well against all the rules
I kept a diary of my time in the Navy and have
been told by scores of people who have read it
that it should be made into a book' and so I
wrote it out all over again leaving some of the
very naughty bits out and my daughter sent it to
four different publishers and they all wanted to
print it but one wanted Β£9,000 and the other
three slightly less' so that was the end of my
book.
But as for tales I could tell you some funny
some serious and some shocking and some very
scary'I think being in the Navy during WW2 you
had it all. -
Message 12
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 7th March 2009
nick
and ------ dont stop
i am really interested in personal tales
we used to have a poster on here - Pegasus Eddie - he had tales posted on the sadly no more Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ peoples war sit - superb
post them and i will read them
st -
Message 13
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 7th March 2009
st
The archive is still there, but not that easy to find and the search engine doesn't work (for this we pay our licence fee?).
LW -
Message 14
Posted by NICK (U1182021) on Sunday, 8th March 2009
Yes it was a big pity that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ stopped that
site' but it had been going on for a long time
although there was scores of interesting stories
about WW2 from men and women who had taken part
and it made it very interesting for people who
had lost loved ones in certain battles or action
because it gave them an idea as to what they had
gone through or how they were lost.
I posted quite a few items on the site and had
lots of questions to answer' but so did lots of
veterans two in patricular, the sinking of the
mighty Bismark and a night action with another
Destroyer in the Med in which we sank Eleven
enemy ships in a three hour action. -
Message 15
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 19th March 2009
Many people I know or heard of joined the services in World War 1 & 2. My question is Why.They were leaving to a great unknown, from the idyllic prairies of central Canada to endanger themsleves in others conflicts and would we or our sons do the same today?Μύ
Maybe they didn't seem so idyllic to many young men who had to live there. After all, around WW1 time there was a big migration from the country into the cities, on both sides of the Atlantic. Maybe the "migration" into the armies was similarly motivated.
FTM, even city life was often bleak and dreary for many. Quite a few probably found their local "Civvy Street" so wretched that they welcomed any escape - even into the trenches.
As to the present generation, I doubt if you'd ever get the mass enthusiasm of 1914 - people are much more cynical now - but I wouldn't be too surprised if the current depression led to a rise in enlistment. I know a young man at my Church who has joined up simply because he can't find a halfway decent civilian job. I pray he doesn't wind up in Helmand Province. -
Message 16
Posted by colonelblimp (U1705702) on Friday, 20th March 2009
My father told me he joined the RAF on September 3rd 1939 because he hated his job as a clerk in a firm of greengrocers. I think he also wanted to fly (as it turned out, he was rejected for aircrew) and I rather suspect he was sticking two fingers up at his father. My grandfather was a teacher, who avoided being conscripted in WW1 because a medical examination determined that he had a heart condition. He lived until 1968, in robust good health as far as I know. Curiously, at least one of his teaching colleagues also escaped conscription on the same grounds. My grandfather seems to have made it pretty clear that he didn't believe Dad would ever amount to much and I think that, perhaps subconsciously, he was showing his father he was a better man than him.
My other grandfather was a WW1 infantryman: he wasn't old enough to volunteer at the start of the war but was called up in 1916. He had no time for men who wouldn't fight. To the best of my knowledge, the only member of my family who did volunteer in WW1 was a great uncle who joined the RAMC - and I wouldn't be surprised if he too was getting away from his father, who seems to have been a stereotypical Victorian authority figure. -
Message 17
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Friday, 20th March 2009
My father told me he joined the RAF on September 3rd 1939 because he hated his job as a clerk in a firm of greengrocers. I think he also wanted to fly (as it turned out, he was rejected for aircrew) Μύ
My father joined the RAF in 1938. He has never talked about it much, but I get the feeling he saw war looming up, and wanted to choose his branch of the service rather than wait for someone else to choose it for him.
He too applied for flying duties, but was turned down because his night vision did not meet the required standard (a condition I seem to have inherited), thus surviving to marry my Mum in 1943, and produce me in 1948 and my sister in 1951. Given the mortality rate among aircrew, his visual handicap may well have saved his life. -
Message 18
Posted by laudian (U13735323) on Thursday, 26th March 2009
Why join up?Μύ
My father joined up in 1914 because of peer pressure. The entire Boys Club, joined the local Pals Battalion set up by the Mayor of a nearby town. He went with his elder brother whom he idolised all his life. Dad joined up again in 1940, because his wife and young daughter had just died of some kind of fever.
Both brothers came back in 1919. He used to tell the sad tale of a couple of his friends who joined up with them but didn't come back, both dying on the Somme.[ I think.]
After the war dad and uncle Bill continued going out together every Friday night , but used to take the long way around to their favourite drinking hole. The mother of the two dead friends used to waylay them and reproach them that her sons hadn't made it. -
Message 19
Posted by caveman1944 (U11305692) on Friday, 27th March 2009
Hi St,i appreciate that you want some detail but I could waffle on for ages, repeating stuff I had written on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Memoryshare Liverpool. I posted under Caveman1944, which name was prompted by an event in Thailand.
I had written; again out of boredom; of anything I could think of throughout life, but while I did not know if it would be seen as appropriate, I figured that a memory is just that and I included items which covered from 12/13th March, 1941, when I was on the street in a heavy raid, to 1945. I went to Park Hall Camp, Oswestry , a few hours after the raid.
It's all mixed up though but it's there.
I would like to speak though of the parachute mine
THe swish of a bomb is soon done, but while i had seen many mines explode with their huge, spreading red glow, I was not aware that they were mines. You have to be close to them to hear them, and if you can do that, then you are potentially 'up the creek'!
I was with a cousin outside his house when we heard this strange and very menacing sound which prompted us to dash up the path and crouch behind the front door.
What we were hearing was that huge mine swinging back and forth on the end of it's 'chute',creating a roar as it displaced air, followed by a pause, before swinging back again, so it was roar, pause, roar, pause. Picture crouching in a shelter or house with kids perhaps, and knowing that this beast of a thing is heading your way.
In our end of town there were three in almost a straight line, and what I assume was the first to drop, killed 26 including a family of eight.
In the north end of town where others were dropping, my sister-in-law lost her mother, father-in-law and 14 year old brother-in-law.
They are approximately eight feet long and two feet in diameter, and designed to explode above ground.
THankfully, the last recorded raid on Mereyside was in January 1942, so while I went into captivity, they decended into peace.
Must go seeing that I can't 'save' this .
John -
Message 20
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 28th March 2009
Boredom, peer pressure, a pay raise and all the other reasons above are honest and sincere reasons for many. But I wonder if in this cynical age, people aren't just a bit reticent to expose to snorts of derision the extent to which they are motivated by a young man's simple desire to set right an injustice, to stop agression, to make the world a better place by killing some people who just need killing.
I was not alive in WW2 but as I hear the old people of my family talk, there were all the reasons mentioned above, but some just had a passionate desire to go out and kill as many of Hirohitos and Hitlers troops as possible because what was good and true and hopeful about the human project was in sore need of their death to survive. -
Message 21
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Saturday, 28th March 2009
Boredom, peer pressure, a pay raise and all the other reasons above are honest and sincere reasons for many. But I wonder if in this cynical age, people aren't just a bit reticent to expose to snorts of derision the extent to which they are motivated by a young man's simple desire to set right an injustice, to stop agression, to make the world a better place by killing some people who just need killing.
I was not alive in WW2 but as I hear the old people of my family talk, there were all the reasons mentioned above, but some just had a passionate desire to go out and kill as many of Hirohitos and Hitlers troops as possible because what was good and true and hopeful about the human project was in sore need of their death to survive.Μύ
Yet others, in the opposite trench, had rallied just as eagerly to commit the aggression - sorry, of course I mean to defend the Fatherland against those evil enemies who were encircling it, or to redress the injustices of Versailles, or to give their country a proper share of the colonial spoils or - - well whatever. High moral purposes can always be found pretty much to order.
Certainly, most people in Britain thought Hitler a nasty man, but my impression is that there was precious little will to fight him until we ourselves began to feel threatened. That, of course, is why we never went to war with Stalin, who was just as evil, but that little bit further away, hence less of a threat. -
Message 22
Posted by sevenskies (U13875542) on Wednesday, 1st April 2009
In general , armies of superpowers are made of mercenaries , even during WW2 or more recently during wars against Afghan and Iraq , the soldiers of the alliance armies are paid assasins, hefty paychecks and lucrative promises on each contract. IMO, those are enough to tempt any young fool to join the army.
I think Taliban and AlQaeda use many mercenaries too with no big difference than the US or UK army servicemen. -
Message 23
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Wednesday, 1st April 2009
In general , armies of superpowers are made of mercenaries , even during WW2 or more recently during wars against Afghan and Iraq , the soldiers of the alliance armies are paid assasins, hefty paychecks and lucrative promises on each contract. IMO, those are enough to tempt any young fool to join the armyΜύ
Not necessarily a fool, often just a poor kid who can't land a decent civilian job - especially if he's the sort of active "outdoor" type who'd go stir crazy in an office.
It is certainly very noticeable that the British army is disproportionately drawn from Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland - and even from Southern Ireland despite its nominal independence. You don't get many volunteers from leafy suburbs in the Southeast. Also, a lot of boys leaving local authority "care" end up in HM Forces - it's the nearest thing they've ever had to a family.
This is why, I suspect, it is futile to seek much contribution to the Afghan mess from Germany or any other countries which still have compulsory military service. Until they abandon conscription, they just daren't put their soldiers in harm's way - the boys' parents would lynch any politician who did so. Serious participation is limited to states with volunteer armies. -
Message 24
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 4th April 2009
Most people that I know serving in the US armed forces today don't need to do that for economic reasons. The son of an attorney friend who had the brains and money to do anything he wanted chose to go to West Point and leads a regiment in Afghanistan now. The husband of a woman I work with remained in the National Guard because is it a family tradition and for the joy of it. There are financial benefits, but he and his wife made over 100,000 dollars a year in their civilian jobs--he loses money when he is called to active duty as he has been for a total of over 2 years in the current wars.
Some of the superciliousness of those who don't serve and come from social classes where they don't know anyone who serves are rooted I think in defense mechanisms against facing repressed shame that they feel at their own sense of entitlement to being defended by others and a simple lack of big enough onions to fight.
Perhaps the southeast leafy suburbs, like those of Conneticut and San Francisco, encourage the development of effete androgyny and narcissistic entitlement. I forget which, but I recall reading one of the ancient greek historians commenting on the observation that prolonged easy living promoted the feminine characteristics and tended to leave a people unable and unwilling to defend their country. While it is common in the midwest and southern US for the sons of prosperous and professional families to serve, and is a source of pride, in the northeast it is seen as almost pathological.
There are only two things a nation absolutely must do to survive. That is to defend themselves and reproduce. Certain cosmopolitan classes of both the US and Britain, of the West in general actually, don't bother much with either. -
Message 25
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Saturday, 4th April 2009
Most people that I know serving in the US armed forces today don't need to do that for economic reasons. The son of an attorney friend who had the brains and money to do anything he wanted chose to go to West Point and leads a regiment in Afghanistan now. The husband of a woman I work with remained in the National Guard because is it a family tradition and for the joy of it. There are financial benefits, but he and his wife made over 100,000 dollars a year in their civilian jobs--he loses money when he is called to active duty as he has been for a total of over 2 years in the current wars.
Μύ
Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but last I heard, the US armed forces were drawn disproportionately from the South - the poorer half of the country - and from Blacks who average somewhat poorer than Whites. Sounds to me as though things aren't all that different from in England.
Incidentally, I understand that the expression "trailer trash", which I've heard (but would not myself use) as a description of many who join up, is more current in the US than over here. I've never heard it used in Britain.
And of course there's more than one form of economic benefit. One of the Missionaries who taught me back in 1995 later spent several years as a US Navy pilot - and now uses the skills thus acquired to earn a bigger salary with Southwest Airlines.
BTW, my father served thirty years in the Royal Air Force, and much of my childhood was spent in RAF married quarters, so I have nothing against the forces - but I'm not starry-eyed about what draws many people into them. -
Message 26
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 10th April 2009
Oft repeated impressions, especially when they help carry the political point of vocal partisans, often are not supported by actual facts.
A demographic study looking at the sources of US military recruits in 1999 and 2003 found that:
Recruits tend to come from middle class areas with disproportionately fewer from poorer areas and richer areas as measured by household income. That distribution shifted from 1999 to 2003 to richer areas.
I don't want to glaze anyones eyes over with numbers but a few are helpful:
in 1999 the 20% of the population in the lowest quintile economically contributed 18% or recruits in the US. By 2003 that was down to 14.6%. The 20% of the population in the highest quintile of household income increased it's percentage of contribution to the recruit pool from 18.6% to 22.0%.
Meanwhile the middle class, as always, continue to contribute the bulk of America's fighting forces. Recruits are also much more likely to have graduated high school than the general population of youth.
Racially, white make up about the same proportion of recruits as they are in the population--within 2%. Blacks a little higher and other minorities lower. Blacks are not pulling the weight of the majority whites in national defense but rather of asians. That makes sense when one considers that the military was one of the first institutions that was desegregated and therefore long an honored and fruitful career path for Black Americans. It also is expected when one considers that the South has a strong tradition of highly honoring military service and most Black Americans either live in or have recent roots in the South. Whites in the south also serve in disproportionately higher numbers. But as shown above, it is no disproportionately the most poor or uneducated.
Other areas overrepresented are the Northern Rockies, Alaska, and Maine. Minorities that are dramatically overrepresented are American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Alaskan Natives. Each has its own particular cultural reasons for that. Many American Indians have an unbroken tradition of US military service in their father's line for several generation going back to their alliances with the US in the Indian Wars.
If it is the trailer park crowd going in, then it must be the ones who finish school and whose parents live there out of prudent frugality rather than penury as shown by the economic data above--not the "trash". Or maybe they just aren't too snobby to live in a trailer when it makes sense for them just as they aren't too snobby to join up.
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