I have very complicated thoughts around the current need to fetishise military service as a means of churning more and more men and women from a lower socio economic class through the military industrial complex, spitting them out the other side without support. The displays this weekend every year and the feeling of being compelled into participating have increased year on year over the last 20 years and I’m glad to be in neutral country the more and more I see of it. It felt much less mandatory and much more of a personal choice when I was younger.
I see this as a part of it. Everyone has to be seen to be participating more than doing. I don’t blame either VMP, they’re just bowing to the climate, or the people taking advantage, they’re getting a few quid off from a hollow gesture.
We need more mature adult conversations and less displays of public sorrow and celebration of people who are just doing their jobs and who we ignore when the reality of them doing their jobs confronts us over the rest of the year.