The late Lord Macaulay once quipped that there was nothing as ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality. Does anyone remember the brouhaha over FIFA's ban on British players wearing poppies in the run up to a Remembrance Sunday match a few years back?
At the time I and several others (such as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn) made the point that the REAL scandal was not FIFA's ban on poppies but the straitened circumstances in which our former servicemen were forced to live, with many sleeping rough on the streets(but of course since this reflected poorly on successive British Governments of ALL political complexions- Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem- ALL were content to pay lip service to "Our Boys" in wartime and on Remembrance Sunday but short changed them when they fell on hard times, this was conveniently overlooked.
But truth crushed to Earth shall rise again! Today's front page story in the Sun(www.thesun.co.uk, Janaury 18, 2018) featured a former SAS (Special Air Service Regiment) veteran who participated in the siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1980 who has been reduced(like many of his fellows) to sleeping rough on the streets.
Now I admit that I have been critical of many aspects of US society in my blog postings(such as their attitude to firearms) but one thing that has aroused my admiration is their attitude to their veterans, manifested not just in the "GI Bill" of 1944(which helped double the size of the US middle class in the post 1945 boom) but the Veterans Administration. Instead of relying on private charity, the Americans tend to realize that the welfare of the former "vet" is too important to be left to individual initiative.
I think we need a British "GI Bill"- ASAP!
Anybody think as I do?
Terry
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