manchester uni, hang your head in shame.

Originally Posted by sarah

The same thing has been happening is schools in deprived areas too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7311917.stm

Bring back national service I say.

EDIT: I mean, bring IN national service.

Originally Posted by DanAbnormal

Bring back national service I say.

only for boys though

Originally Posted by sarah

only for boys though

Agreed. Girls in the Army are crap.

Originally Posted by sarah

The same thing has been happening is schools in deprived areas too.

Yes but to be fair hisoricly a lot of the infantry and lesss skilled trades in the forces have come from lowere income deprived areas, where to be fair the military had provided an alternative to becoming a crack ***** or a thieving scu*bag destined for a life of crime. It promosies to provide you with accomodation , money and a lot else for your commitment and yes in some cases your life if it should turn out that way. what i am saying is why should the Army or military stop recruiting just because a small group of soap dodging hippys object to it? It will probably give some of these drop outs a better life than they will have with no real qualifications. and in some cases give them a better life than their qualified equivilents.Not that i come from a deprived area, i concider myself quite well educated and could have gone to Uni but chose the Military instead, My particular trade will give me a Masters Degree in Telecommunications all funded by the Army, oh plus the X ammount of years working in the industry as well. Also the Job i am doing at the momment works very closely with the Comms industry and some of the projects will look very good on a CV for an employee cmpared to some litte post grad with their little bit of paper and no experiance in the real world. I currently earn more than all my friends that went to Uni to do various dif degrees, oh and not one of them now work in their respective area.

I would like to point out that nowadays unless you are a complet idiot you know what you are signing up for and know you will go away at some point to a war zone.

Also, none of us sign up for this Queen and contry cr*p, or because we believe in what the government wants us to do. However it isa fact we have to serve as we are told, go where the government sends us even if we dont agree with it. I joined up almost 11 years ago so Iraq and Afgan did not even figure back then. And now well if i wanted to i could leave if i objected that much to what we are doing or diddnt want to do it anymore. I did not agree with the reasons for invading Iraq at all but still when it was my turn to go i went and done the job i had to do. The same wuld be true of anywhere i go on tour.

Its a shame the small minded students blame the Military for the governments f**k ups, We have no choice as unfortunaty they control us much as i would rather the Monarchy have ultimate say over our uses sometimes. After all i took the oath of alligence to the Queen not the government of the time. i wonder how these supposidly well educated individuals can sometimes be so small minded and blinkered in their outlook towards life.

I would be interested to see the statistics for the UK military in regard to the following. (I have not got time to do it myself as I am at work)

Peace keeping duties vs. Conflict initiated by HM Government

Say over the last 20 years.

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

Exactly, learning. Learning to think outside the box, learning to have "inquiring minds". That means learning what is already known and encouraging thinking beyond what is known. Otherwise all we'd ever know is all that was ever known before.

Most of the students I've known, and there have been many, spent the majority of their time at uni learning just two things -

a) how to get slaughtered on as little money as possible,

b) how to get laid as much as possible

Granted some went to learn and explore new academic horizons, but the majority saw it as an easy way of getting another 3 years older before getting a proper job. I suspect my middle daughter is somewhere inbetween those two camps - she's certainly managed to acquire a greater tolerance to alcohol since going to Uni but her grades are pretty good.

Originally Posted by ukgooner

I would be interested to see the statistics for the UK military in regard to the following. (I have not got time to do it myself as I am at work)

Peace keeping duties vs. Conflict initiated by HM Government

Say over the last 20 years.

depends on how you quantify conflict?? do you count the conflict in the Balkans where we were there to peace keep yet involved in daily fire fights, and Afgan, people seem to forget its actually a humanitarian effort, it was the Yanks who started that one. IFOR is there to help. Again we are getting involved in daily fights though.

NI, well we went there originally to assist the RUC and keep the peace , again we got dragged into conflict.

So really the Falklands and Iraq are thoe only ones you can count, oh sorry cant even count the falklands as it was 25 yrs ago.

so its about 5 years vs 20

I can't belive this, but I actually agree with neio. I think I need a lie down

[quote=neio79;1492992]We have no choice as unfortunaty they control us much as i would rather the Monarchy have ultimate say over our uses sometimes. After all i took the oath of alligence to the Queen not the government of the time.[/quote]

Technically, the Queen does still control the military. Revolutions tend to be a bit messy though, so hopefully it won't come to her having to launch a crusade against president Brown and his dream of creating the Peoples Socialist Republic of Britain

Technically the Queen controls the government too.