steepholm

They used to, you know. Both Prime Ministers during World War I had sons in the Army, and Asquith's eldest was killed in action.

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True enough: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied." One of the few disadvantages of a professional armed forces is the further distancing of those who give the command for war from those who suffer because of it.

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That their sons would suffer didn't prevent them from doing a lot of ill-advised or precipitate things, however. Perhaps if Tony Blair had a son who would be sent to Syria, he might still feel the same way.

Or to have ill-advised or precipitate things done in their spite. I've read somewhere (if true, this story ought to be more widespread) that Lloyd George was appalled at the senseless waste of repeated over-the-top attacks that got mowed down and slaughtered, but he couldn't make the generals stop doing it, eventually hitting on the technique of scaling way back on the draft, thus starving them of cannon fodder. (Was this really the only relevant power at his disposal?)

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Well, Agamemnon did kill Iphigenia, too - but it came back to bite him.

I hadn't heard that about Lloyd George, though it seems possible. And the generals might have been able to point to the less-than-glorious record of politicians in dictating military strategy (c.f. Churchill and the Dardanelles campaign).

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Give or take Ian Duncan Smith (according to those in the know a bloody useless officer) and, if my memory serves, one other, there's no one in the present goverment or opposition who has military experience, which really tells you all you need to know.

But what would I know? I'm a convinced pacifist.

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There's no bad situation that can't be made better by lobbing in high explosives, seems to be the line.

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gillo

In the case of the current Cabinet, I might be prepared to make an exception to my normal rejection of that as a workable or ethical plan.

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Once upon a time, everyone had military experience because there was thing called National Service, which had been invented for precisely that reason. However, it was eventually given up, because it turned out to be a waste of everyone's time. I suggest the novel Ginger, You're Barmy by David Lodge for an explanation of why this was.

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I read a study of national service recently, 'The Best Years of Their Lives' by Trevor Royle and the attitudes of most of those put through it seems to be pretty much as you suggest, but I don't think it hurts that a government might at contain a few people who might at least have some inkling of what war actually means to those at the sharp end. I'm a pacifist and a military historian and some of the local squaddies tell me (this is a barracks town and I'm a bootneck's daughter) that at least I 'understand the bullshit'.

Edited Date: 2013-08-27 03:52 pm (UTC)

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Leaving aside the fact that National Service didn't usually give experience of war, only of the military, experience of war seems to drive veterans into one of two camps: those who exercise due caution in recognition of the horrors they could unleash, and those who seem only ravenous for more. The US's most fervent proletariat defenders of the Vietnam War could be found in the halls of the VFW, the veterans' union and social club.

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That depended. My father was originally a national serviceman then signed on with the Royal Marine Commandos, but as a national serviceman he saw service in live war situations in both Aden and Suez.

My late FiL was a regular and saw front line service in both WW1 and WW2 (the Somme, Passendal, St Valery and D Day+3 amongst others and he was still there when they knocked down the gates of Belsen) and he was as anti war as you could be whilst remaining an infantryman from the soles of his boots up throughout his long life.

Edited Date: 2013-08-27 05:00 pm (UTC)

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I think the reason that the halls of the VFW were full of rabid Vietnam war-boosters was that anti-war veterans tended not to join the VFW, not feeling welcome there. But that did leave the impression that veterans were all in favor of the war.

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ashkitty.livejournal.com

You're probably onto something there. My dad's a Vietnam vet and an incomplete pacifist (by which I mean the 'war as a very last resort' kind rather than 'in no circumstances ever') and I think has set foot in the VFW exactly once, for someone's wedding. It's not until about 3 years ago that he got back in touch with the people he knew there at all, because they managed to track him down and invite him to a reunion and he figured he'd regret not seeing the ones still alive while they were still alive. But I do think the ones who end up in the VFW are a particular type.

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tekalynn.livejournal.com

I took a moment of silence for the memory of your father-in-law and father.

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My father's still with us although he has nothing to do with yours truly. None of the WW1 generation of soldiers now remains with us which is why I find the wish to celebrate the start of that disastrous business next year deeply puzzling, but that's another topic entirely.

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Of course, that was at a time when "everyone"="able-bodied men". (It's a tangent, but it never ceases to amaze me that of all the countries that still have compulsory national service - and there are many, including the super-liberal Nordic ones - only Israel includes women.)

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As the universe of discourse is senior politicians, that did, in those days, pretty much limit it to able-bodied men, the occasional Thatcher or Castle aside. (Were there any disabled persons in senior office before Blunkett?)

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Interesting question: I can't think of one, and certainly not one whose disability came young enough to disqualify them from military service. But my knowledge is far from encyclopaedic.

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F D Roosevelt on the other side of the pond and Churchill in the sense of being a depressive. Moshe Dayan in Israel. Those are the ones I can recall right now, but I suspect there are others.

Edited Date: 2013-08-27 04:59 pm (UTC)

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Well, not at the time they were eligible for military service. Anthony Eden's body was pretty knackered by a botched operation by the time he became PM, but he had served in combat in WW1.

Churchill's depression, if it had hit him that early, didn't prevent his military service. Dayan actually lost his eye in combat, and that was before the state of Israel was founded: his entire military career for that state was conducted with the eyepatch.

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I don't think FDR would ever have been fit for military service.

Churchill was something of a war hero having escaped from Boer captivity and made a 'home run' during that conflict but he seems to have suffered from 'the black dog' pretty much all his life.

I think I'm right in saying that the eye was only the most visible of Dayan's combat injuries. He shared that one (and his ability to ignore orders) with Horatio Nelson! :o)

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re FDR, why not? He was 39 when the polio hit, and he was fairly fit before then, so far as I know. Generally he was of robust build, with much physical energy, which helped a lot when he had to build his upper body strength after his legs atrophied.

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Eyesight- see below (you already did :o)

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FDR, also, was not disabled when of military age. He did not, however, ever serve in the military, an interesting example of a successful political leader in war who did not. (Lincoln also counts: he briefly served in a militia unit during an Indian war, but said of it later that the only battles they fought were against the mosquitoes.)

When Clinton was President, various partisans claimed he had no moral right to command military forces since he'd never served in them. To the response, "Neither had FDR," they claimed he had, because he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WW1. But that wasn't serving in the military: he was a top civilian Washington bureaucrat.

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I suspect his eyesight would have failed him on the medical.

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Maybe. I wouldn't count that as "disabled", though, any more than flat feet. A lot of such limitations were lifted during wartime, anyway. JFK's back problems would have kept him out of the Army, even during war, so he used connections to get himself accepted in the Navy (which had no draft) instead.

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ethelmay.livejournal.com

Henry Fawcett (blinded at 25 in a shooting accident) was an MP, but never held any senior office as far as I can make out. Nor, it seems, did Arthur MacMorrough Kavanagh (born with rudimentary arms and legs).

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Although most European armies that no longer conscript do now recruit women in sharp end situations. Not sure about the Swiss who do still conscript.

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