Used and Abused

On my way out of the British Army, "services no longer required", a sort of dishonourable discharge for refusing to obey orders, there was me being sent back to Catterick Garrison in the late summer of 1974; Terry Jacks was blasting out his, "we had fun, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun", the Scottish football team had arrived in Germany for the 1974 World Cup just as I was leaving, the I.R.A. were bombing mainland Britain and there was us, an odd assortment of odd fellows who Her Majesty's Services were glad to be seeing the back of, couldn't even trust us, but there they were giving us pickaxe handles and combat gear and telling us that we have to do guard duty, just a couple of days before they kicked us out of the army, because the I.R.A. were bombing the mainland. Christ, not me, but some of these chaps would have invited them in; "Want to bomb the place?" "No problem, 'Mick, be my guest." Not me, nevertheless, no sooner was the uniform on than it was discarded, back into "civvies", up the the Harewood Club for a pint, out of here in a couple of days. Ego had learned his lesson and only a genuine brainwashed, in some way educationally sub-normal, being would want to go to foreign fields, like over to West Belfast, to kill and be killed for Elizabeth's shilling.
Now, bearing the above in mind, it was a slightly "feeling sorry" for the young British lads who had laid down their lives for the great "hype" man and his cronies in Westminster. Nevertheless, it is an angry, very upset me who reads reports like the following;
"In Afghanistan, at least five civilians have been killed and another thirteen injured in a US air strike. The Pentagon says US forces had called for the strike after coming under fire. Most of the victims were members of the same family, and the dead included a four-year-old girl. Witnesses said US forces fired on the family members as they tried to flee their home." and: "Meanwhile, at least eleven civilians were killed earlier today in a roadside bombing in Kandahar province. The dead included five children."(1) Time to get out of there boys, back to Catterick, Aldershot, Deepcut, out of that bloodstained uniform and the wasters in Westminster and Washington were using us then and they are using you now.

1 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/17/headlines#2