# British prejudice against soldiers **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2016, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624 "2016-11-21T03:03:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/21 "2016-11-21T17:47:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Note that that Kipling poem is over a century old, so it’s probably not a very reliable indicator of how Brits think nowadays. To the extent that Kipling was pointing out the contradictions between flag-wagging celebrations of mlitary prowess and the realities of life for individual soldiers once their fighting days are done, it’s still got some relevance. A surprisingly high number of rough sleepers turn out to be ex-Army. > [@](#): > > For three centuries from say 1700 to 2000 AD, there was a definite folk memory — particularly amongst educated people — of the repulsion of Cromwell’s military dictatorship through the Major-Generals I think it might go back further than that - English mercenaries on the continent had a certain reputation right through the Middle Ages, not to mention the long depradations of the Wars of the Roses. And think of the way Shakespeare portrays ordinary soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/22 "2016-11-21T19:04:19Z")
“Rough sleepers”? If that means people who have difficulty sleeping peacefully because of traumatic memories in their past, I can see how a lot of them would be veterans… but that’d be because of conditions during the war, not how civilians treated them once they returned. Or is there some other meaning there? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/23 "2016-11-21T19:31:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Rough sleepers”? If that means people who have difficulty sleeping peacefully because of traumatic memories in their past, I can see how a lot of them would be veterans… but that’d be because of conditions during the war, not how civilians treated them once they returned. Or is there some other meaning there? Rough sleepers- homeless people who sleep outside (as opposed to people with no real fixed address who live in vehicles or crash on sofas or whatever most of the time). I worked in security, in the UK, for a while. The company was run by an army veteran, and we had lots of ex-soldiers there, including quite a few who had been… well… less than honourably discharged. Some of them were pretty thoroughly mentally messed up, and all of them said they knew former colleagues who just “couldn’t cope with life outside”. People who couldn’t hold down any kind of job because without someone taking them what to do they just didn’t know what to do. People who blew up at being “ordered around” by civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/24 "2016-11-21T19:33:11Z")
NM. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/25 "2016-11-22T14:10:31Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > and Johnson wisely opined: “_Every man thinks meanly of himself for not being a soldier_.” I think this is a large part of the problem. It is hard to see other men taking up arms in your defense without feeling somewhat inadequate. It makes it much easier if you can degrade those who do so that you can tell yourself that in fact you’re superior by not joining. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/26 "2016-11-22T16:26:04Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > One of George Orwell’s essays makes the point that until conscription and universal military service in the two world wars, soldiers were indeed often looked down on and often left in destitution and turning to petty crime on their return. Once everyone had to do their bit, attitudes changed for a while… From _Monty Python’s Flying Circus_ (1970): “Doug and Dinsdale Piranha were born, on probation, in this small house in Kipling Road, Southwark, the eldest sons in a family of sixteen… At the age of fifteen Doug and Dinsdale started attending the Ernest Pythagoras Primary School in Clerkenwell. When the Piranhas left school\*\* they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service\*\*. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called ‘The Operation’. They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called ‘The Other Operation’. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn’t pay them. One month later they hit upon ‘The Other Other Operation’. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn’t pay them, they would beat him up. This, for the Piranha Brothers, was the turning point.” (Emphasis added) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624/27 "2016-11-22T21:20:05Z")
The draft, when it existed, was widely disliked by just about everybody who was liable for it, but since then soldiering has largely faded out of public consciousness, and fewer and fewer people have any experience of it. It doesn’t get you college credits or anything like that. Historically, soldiers were ‘the scum of the earth, enlisted for drink’. It was a low-status profession, poorly paid, and Jack Frost and seasonal unemployment were the best recruiters. A survey of men entering the cavalry in the 1840s, quoted in the Marquis of Anglesey’s _History of the British Cavalry_, found that most had failed at some other trade or profession and were trying soldiering as a last resort. This is a rare statistic - usually the Army only recorded the man’s trade, not whether he was currently employed in it. > [@](#): > > \*When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. \* This is mostly true, the Kray twins were discharged early from the Air Force as they were always getting into trouble, striking NCOs etc., and the RAF found it less stressful to just get rid of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-prejudice-against-soldiers/772624.md?page=1)