The Good Guys

Remembrance Day has always been a conundrum for me but I think I’m finally getting to grips with it.  I think there are far too many people who jump on the band wagon and buy a poppy simply because they think it’s the right thing to do, or because “my granddad was in the war”.  But were we right to fight the wars we have?  I’m sure the family members of such groups like ISIS, the Taliban and Boko Haram all think that their dead are heroes because they are standing up for what they believe in.  It’s important to know both sides of the story and to make an unbiased judgement on whether soldiers actions are right or wrong.  And I’m sure there are lots of other reasons to why countries go to war, be it to strengthen their political might, to secure resources for their people in the future and so on, but these reasons in my eyes don’t make war right.

And a big “put off” for me is the involvement of the church in such remembrance activities.  Not all war memorials have crosses or quotes from ‘God’ or the bible but a huge majority do have Christian over tones, and I don’t like that.  If wars are fought in the name of religion then they are nonsense and anyone fighting because they think their particular religion is ‘right’ is a fucking idiot.  If people go to war to stand up to tyrants, to prevent horrors and oppression, to protect the innocent or vulnerable, then these in my eyes are admirable reasons to go to war.

I find that most people can’t sensibly answer the question, “Why did Britain get involved in the first world war?”.  Many people think it was because of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand but that wasn’t the case.  Britain had signed a treaty to protect Belgium and didn’t like the thought of one country being in charge of Europe, and it was Germany’s intention to take control of Europe.  Shortly after the invasion of Belgium the German army began to carry out atrocities on civilians.

The Second World War was far more justified, particularly in hind-sight.  The Falklands War was also justified in my opinion, the inhabitants of the island have chosen to be British since 1833 and it’s wrong for any country to flex its muscles and suddenly decide that they want it.  And the Gulf War, the War that I took part in, I believe was justified.  By the time I got there Iraq had invaded Kuwait and again was committing atrocities against civilians.  Hussein was a bad man and it was just that he was removed from power and tried for his actions.

So in summary, and it’s taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, I do believe that we are the good guys and many people died fighting for what was right.  Next year I’ll buy a poppy.

And to make this a photographical entry, with the exception of the Falklands War, each war subsequent to the Great War the photography got better and better.  God knows what happened in the Falklands but the photography was shit.

"First World War"

"Second World War"

"Falklands War"

"Gulf War (Me) (Op Granby)"