‘Do I look like I’m ready for war?’: 17-year-old boy on conscription and WW1

I recall my feelings at the ages of many of the dead servicemen in the Falklands war, and more so the young Argentinian conscripts. I remember occasionally I’d put on “19” about the deaths of conscipts in Vietnam. Perhaps the last generation to have the big group medical tests at 15 (a hang over from the national service and the shock at how unhealthy the intake was in WW1) I recall my mother saying how relieved she was I was flat footed as then at least they wouldn’t have me in the infantry. I suppose I was at the tail end of there being an understanding of the horror and costs of war because people had experienced it. Still we talk about the deaths or maimings as if its just normal if its an adult male. The disposable sex remains as disposable as when over 800,000 british men were disposed of. Also in my memory is a lecture in the late seventies by a sociology professor, a Ukranian with some pretty harsh experiences railing about how sociologists (he was one) ignored war as a subject yet it was a major and sadly frequent event. It seems indeed that we don’t want to delve into war. For fear of what we may find. Perhaps if men,usually young men, shocked us by their deaths war might become impossible. After all the shock of so many men dying was so great after 1918 the threats of totalitarianism were not faced early as the traumatised “victors” could not face disposability on that scale again. Could a democratic society really engage in wars if it were boys and young men who die and are maimed rather than “troops”, “soldiers”, “personell”. I remember the official disquiet at the public marking of returning bodies and the news showing a picture and a name on each death in Afganistan. Whatever Hilary Clinton says wars most numerous casualties are men,young men mainly. Yet we never look closely at how we always seem to have them ready in sufficient numbers to do our (in a democracy) bidding.