The Youth Of Today...

[ChillDoubt]

Do they match up?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23563616

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cornwell#Victoria_Cross

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fitzgibbon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monger

Nothing would give me greater pride than to be proved wrong, though I won't hold my breath....

[Gromit]

// speculated if any of today's youth would be capable of similar acts in perilous circumstances. //

Up and down the country there are hundreds of Army Cadet Companys that have thousands of young boys and girls who are itching to join up. I am sure many would at 15 if the law permitted it.

[Sharingan]

If that's all you'd done initially ChillDoubt, that would have been fine although the answer is obvious that some would and some wouldn't , you then however posted lots of links about teenage thugs, implying that all young people these days are like that. We aren't.

[Gromit]

1700 Army Cadet Detachments and 45,000 teenage recruits. Are you seriously suggesting there are no potential heroes amongst them?

[jim360]

Speak for yourself, Sharingan, I'm such a thug. Down in the hood with my homies... No, I can't keep a straight face even as I type that.

In any era there are nice people, and there are nasty ones. There may be more now, and less then, but even that's doubtful.

[ChillDoubt]

you then however posted lots of links about teenage thugs, implying that all young people these days are like that.
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Explain how I implied that ALL young people are like that?

[Sharingan]

''Yeah, you're right, no comparison at all:'' then a huge number of links to crime committed by young people.
I was rather assuming you were being sarcastic than earnest. I still think that way whatever you say.

[dunnitall]

I have just joined this site so hope you don't' mind me coming in like this. How can you compare youth today with youth yesterday when times are different? Chalk and cheese I think, yes youth of today are a lot of times not up to standard but years ago when faced with war and the like they didn't stand a chance to "live" did they, they had no choice. Horses for courses and each generation lives to what they have to endure at the time. Can't judge one against the other, different era's, different times.

[ChillDoubt]

Sharingan,

As you live in Northern Ireland, do I assume you are one of the youths who were recently seen attacking the PSNI at the recent Orange Order marches?

Of course I don't!!

I have a teenage son. Do I class him as a knife-wielding hoodie with a propensity for attacking all and sundry?

I was simply speculating that culture, conditions and circumstances some 150+ years ago meant that teenage boys in the Army were possibly more likely to carry out the actions they did more than the 'Playstation Generation' of today.
I may well be wrong, it's just something I mused, that's all.

[gness]

Chill...I have brought up two children. Both have made me proud in their behaviour and their care for other people sharing their time on the planet. Some of the things they do surprise me...but....
They both know, and always have, that they will not go to war for this country or for Ireland.
They are proud of the people who went before them and did...but they won't.
Chill....there will have been thugs and heroes in the past....just as today.x

[Gromit]

// The Youth Of Today... Do they match up?

Nothing would give me greater pride than to be proved wrong, though I won't hold my breath.... //

Proved wrong about what. Unless you had already decided they didn't match up.

[Sharingan]

I don't live in Northern Ireland, i live on the Herefordshire / shropshire borders. My father was from Northern Ireland.

[TWR]

The Youth Of Today...
Do they match up?

Who makes the Youth of today?

Who Disciplines the youth of today?

Who CAN Discipline the youth of today.

The answer is plain???

[woofgang]

"I may well be wrong, "

Yes. You are.

[hc4361]

During WWII there were fraudsters, cheats, thieves, rapists, looters of the dead and bombed buildings, thugs who hounded conscientious objectors (imagine if Twitter existed then) by sending white feathers, pregnant single women, illegal abortions, prostitutes, venereal disease (as STDs were called then), deserters, the black market.......

People are no different now. Don't forget all the men and women serving in today's armed forces are volunteers.

[ChillDoubt]

I don't live in Northern Ireland, i live on the Herefordshire / shropshire borders.
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Apologies. I trust you don't indulge in that sort of behaviour if you're ever over there then!

[ChillDoubt]

"I may well be wrong, "

Yes. You are.
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That's still a matter of conjecture.....

[emmie]

what some seem to miss the point of regarding those young people is that they volunteered, they weren't made to go, some were underage and lied to go and do their duty as they saw it, that may seem strange to us today, but that was a wholly different time and a wholly different ethos. I visited some friends relatives grave stones, as a mark of respect and a way of helping the friends know where their memorial was, most of those young men killed were 18-25, its terribly sad.
I only worry at some of those young people i know around me, incoherent, illiterate, in an age of high unemployment this is strange, seeing how long our youngsters go to school and university.

[hc4361]

There was conscription during WWI, not all were volunteers. Many working class people were living in poverty and malnourished and volunteering was an escape from that for some.
None of the volunteers to the armed forces could have foreseen the horrors of that war - none of them knew what they volunteering for.

[emmie]

they may not have known, but who does, do the soldiers that go to foreign fields now not face the same dangers, they may be better armed, but it doesn't stop them being killed, or from the horrors they face. When you read that more soldiers have killed themselves on coming back to the UK than have died out in Afghanistan, something is wrong... youngsters of 18 shouldn't be deployed there i feel,

[emmie]

sorry that went before had a chance to add that they go because they are
soldiers, that is their job,