story-type: ForcesWatch comment

The suffering of veterans

A play about and starring injured veterans, and recent government data and policies, highlights their suffering.

A DVD of the first performance of The Two Worlds of Charlie F, a remarkable play about the experience of UK military personnel injured (mostly) in Afghanistan (mentioned here), was released recently. It stars the veterans whose stories that the script, written by Owen Shears, was based on. Directed by Stephen Rayne, the company – Bravo 22 – first performed The Two Worlds of Charlie F at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in January 2012. It then went on tour, showing in Birmingham, Cardiff, and Edinburgh (where it won Amnesty International Freedom of Expression award), before returning to London to finish in September. The play was initiated by the Haymarket’s charity Masterclass, and received funding from The British Legion. Visiting Personnel Recovery Units and rehabilitation centres, Shears and Rayne learnt that 22% of UK combatants in Afghanistan have been injured. The majority of the cast are injured veterans, and all but one were still serving as of January 2012. None of them had ever acted before, although the protagonist, ‘Charlie’, a Canadian Royal Marine, had studied dance at university in the US. They are mostly men.… Read more

We shall reach them in the classrooms: promoting a ‘military ethos’ in schools

Fostering a ‘military ethos’ in schools: what’s going on.

Earlier this month the Department for Education published a statement on their website outlining their ambition to promote a military ethos in schools across the country. They state that: “We associate the military with many positive values: loyalty, resilience, courage and teamwork, to name but a few. We recognise that these core values can have a positive impact on pupils”. Through developing projects such as Troops to Teachers and expanding schemes such as the cadets and other alternative military provision in schools (such as Challenger Troop), the government is now actively encouraging schools, especially newer Academies and Free Schools, which tend to exist in more disadvantaged areas, to foster a military ethos.

This official announcement is a major step in a growing trend towards the militarisation of England’s schools; coming after a series of announcements dating back to 2010 and including projects such as Troops to Teachers, military academies, a cadet option within the proposed National Citizen Service and most recently an £11million scheme to create 100 new cadet units in state schools by 2015. It marks the adoption of a ‘military ethos’ as a key part of this government’s education policy; yet this announcement, tucked away and hard to find on the website, has attracted almost no attention.… Read more

Militarising Education

This article was originally published on openDemocracy

The incursion of the military into the British education system will mean that alternatives to war and peaceful ways of resolving conflict will be more difficult for young people to explore. In the long term we will all pay a heavy price.

The UK government is on a drive to integrate ‘military ethos and skills’ into the structure of education, echoing developments in the US and founded on an ideology that says that everything military is good.

According to an unpublished 2007 report by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the UK military already has substantial involvement in education, visiting thousands of schools and colleges each year and having contact with a minimum of around 900,000 children aged 8 -18. Figures obtained link under the Freedom of Information Act suggest that in many areas most secondary level state schools and colleges are being visited, often numerous times. The three aims of this involvement were outlined in the Youth Engagement Review 2011: recruitment, to raise awareness of the armed forces “in order to ensure the continued support of the population” and to encourage personal and social development. The first two are Defence outcomes, the third chimes neatly with the Government’s agenda in other areas in which military input into young people’s lives is being seen as a solution to wider issues of social dysfunction.… Read more

“It’s not a game”

Each of the episodes from both series of Our War focuses on a different platoon or company, with varying missions during their tours in Helmand Province (which dated from between 2006 and 2012). Common themes to each of them include the youth of those involved, and the gravity of what is being asked of them.

The second series of the compelling Our War, on British Army officers’ and soldiers’ experiences of the war in Afghanistan, first shown on BBC Three between August and September, was repeated on BBC One last month. Like the Bafta-winning Series 1, first broadcast in June 2011, the three episodes consist of footage taken by troops of their patrols and time at their compounds, interspersed with interviews back in the UK with some of them and their relatives.

These soldiers and officers are almost all very young men, the youngest eighteen and twenty-three respectively. One of the platoons is nicknamed ‘Kindergarten’; another has an average age of twenty-one. Most of the soldiers in the first episode of series 1 (1.1) were still at school in 2001 when the Twin Towers were hit and the war started. Among the Welsh Guards in 2.3, one joined because he loved guns, and one joined because where he was from you either worked “in a chicken factory or go on the dole”.… Read more

Critical portrayals of life in the armed forces in two West End plays

There are two plays on in London’s West End currently that depict life in the UK military, and they do so critically. There is considerable similarity in the themes of the two plays: why young men join the armed forces, how they are often neglected when injured, and the horror of contemporary war in general.

Our Boys‘, by Jonathan Lewis, at the Duchess Theatre is a revival, having first been performed in 1993. The scene throughout is a ward in Woolwich Military Hospital in 1984. There are six characters, five privates and a potential officer, all in their early-to-mid twenties. Much of the play is light-hearted, the young men joking with and teasing each other to ease their frustrating situation, but there are some poignant moments, and a particularly-powerful ending.

Sandi Toksvig’s Bully Boy is at the St James Theatre. The title comes from the nickname of a unit serving in Iraq which Private Eddie Clark belongs to. He is being investigated by wheelchair-bound Military Police Officer Major Hadley over the alleged murder of an unarmed eight-year-old Iraqi boy during an attack on his unit. In stark contrast to Our Boys it is intense throughout – its funnier moments and scenes only offer partial respite.… Read more

Recently….on the Olympics, strike-breaking and the armed forces

Will the Olympics normalise the military ‘on the streets’?

Clarke notes that “The Chiefs should bottle that spirit for the difficult years to come” and that such “goodwill” will be useful in post-Afghanistan roles, which could include greater involvement in “home security”.

Is normalisation of the military within everyday life a good thing? Is it the mark of a “self-confident British society” or would a better indicator of that be a far less visible presence of the military?

The army being seen as having saved the day after the G4S failure is only one way in which the Olympics will have escalated the scale of expected military involvement in civilian events. Such involvement will become the expected norm for the next big public event, here and elsewhere. Indeed, the Home Affairs Select Committee stated in a report on the G4S debacle, that, “in the planning of future major events, the military might more appropriately be considered first choice rather than a back-up.”

The armed forces as strike-breakers?

With a note of caution, Clarke does suggest that a greater presence “on the street” would be unpopular among Chiefs, politicians and the (Metropolitan) police, so “should be seen as a one-off military operation” rather than paving the way for more general involvement in civilian situations such as public sector strikes.… Read more

Recently… on militainment

A recent article called The Morning After: Unfriendly Fire by James Poniewozik in Time Magazine critiques a new reality TV show from the US TV channel NBC, Stars Earn Stripes, “in which celebrities are paired with soldiers to carry out special-forces-type maneuvers, was denounced by nine Nobel laureates, including South African bishop Desmond Tutu, for glamourising war and its violence by making them into entertainment.”

Poniewozik agrees that “it makes war into entertainment”, and asserts that it is “cynical” in “giving people the excitement of battle minus its blood and consequences—by wrapping it in idealism: competing for charity, claiming to exist simply to remind us how dangerous the job of soldiers…is.”

But he argues’ “But when it comes to propagandizing war—or anything else—reality shows are more harmful when they take actual combat and package it in entertainment form.” 

Thats something that Poniewozik wrote about in 2002 in an article called Mediawatch: That’s Militainment! “There’s a new alliance in Hollywood: the military-entertainment complex. The networks need a new twist on reality TV, the genre that has cooled since 9/11–or perhaps, in part, because of it. The Pentagon has a p.r. issue: How do you maintain public interest in a war that could stay on simmer–an air strike here, a wiretap there–for years?… Read more

Sexual assault and bullying in the armed forces

A parliamentary question reveals that during 2011 there were 228 allegations of bullying or harassment reported to the Service Complaints Commissioner. Another parliamentary question has identified that ‘Over the past two and a half years, there have been 53 reported rapes and 86 reported sexual assaults in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force (one per week). Labour MP Madeleine Moon said she was concerned there was a ‘culture of silence’, with hundreds of victims never reporting attacks.

Figures from the US estimate that only 13.5% of victims of sexual assault in the armed forces ever report the attack. If this figure is true for the UK, that would mean one attack a day.The articles states that of these cases, ‘only nine rape cases and 45 sexual assault complaints have ended in conviction.’

Sadly, an article from April this year (Why did she die? Sister of hanged military policewoman demands Armed Forces watchdog inquiry into her death) links these 2 issues – with the suicide of a military policewoman after being raped and then bullied for making a complaint.… Read more

Service Schools and more cadet forces – an exercise in recruitment

Over the past month, amid announcements of major cuts to the armed forces, came some unexpected news on public spending: £10.85million to expand cadet forces into state schools, a £1million grant to promote a military ethos in schools and senior Labour politicians calling for a series of ‘Service Schools’, staffed entirely by former members of the armed forces, to be established. Unexpected, that is, to anyone who hasn’t previously been aware of the importance that military policy makers place on access to young people within education.

The money, which comes in addition to the £155m of public money already spent each year on the cadets (Youth Engagement Review, MoD, 2011), is to promote cadet forces in state schools (where less than a quarter of existing units are based) – either by partnering with existing units, or creating new ones. The rationale behind doing so is not as clear cut as politicians such as Stephen Twigg and Jim Murphy would have us believe.

‘Rescuing the Young’….

The idea of ‘Service Schools’, founded on the ‘ethos and values of the Services’, has its background in a recent ResPublica report on establishing Military Academies and promoting a greater armed forces presence in the education sector.… Read more

Armed Forces Day, Camo Day and promoting military ethos

Today is ‘Camo Day’, established by SSAFA Forces Help to encourage school children across the country to ‘dress up like our troops’ as a fundraiser. ‘Cam your face, wear green or come to school as a soldier, sailor or airman.’ Camo Day is a non-uniform day to fit these increasingly militaristic times when supporting the armed forces is a badge of honour for celebrities and military involvement in the education system is commonplace and uncontroversial. Camo Day promotes the value of helping ex-service men and women but also reinforces military activities as fun, normal and desirable. Questions about why so many young men and women are killed or maimed or in need of welfare are unlikely to be explored.

Tomorrow is Armed Forces Day – a day “to raise public awareness of the contribution made to our country by those who serve and …an opportunity to Show Your Support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces.”

The Armed Forces Day website states that that “UK Armed Forces defend the UK and its interests. They are busy working around the world, promoting peace, delivering aid, tackling drug smugglers and providing security and fighting terrorism.”  This is something of a rebranding of the unpopular wars that the UK has been involved in for 10 years.… Read more