Imagine a scenario where you have served your country for 22 years risking your life in many trouble spots, witnessing the death or wounding of your mates, making your family live in substandard accommodation, moving your kids from school to school and living a life of deprivation just doing your job.
Don't get me wrong military life enables you to enjoy a camaderie rarely achieved in civilian life and the highs and lows of service at the extreme end of the scale often adds a richness to life but...most long serving servicemen, those who provide the backbone to service life have always known that the pension achieved after 18 years service (for a non commisioned officer) will provide them and their families with a measure of security for their remaining years. In my day it was 22 years.
So now I read today that, not only are they sacking 20% of the fighting forces they are sacking NCO's days before they qualify for their pension. It is the ultimate betrayal by a government that poses under the banner of Conservatism and acts like communists. I think that the Mail columnist Littlejohn has summed it up admirably.
What I do not understand is why there is not one politician challenging this aberration? Where is the British Legion? Surely this must be a breech of contract? Whatever else it is it is a warning to all the servicemen that they cannot trust their paymasters in the MOD. Why should they continue to risk their lives for people who have scant regard for human dignity.
I can think of no other final act of betrayal than to cheat on the soldiers. Let it be a lesson to all of us. These bloody politicans have no honour whatsoever. Anyone who commits the ultimate betrayal has no place even in this modern Britain that they have created!
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