What a Gent

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-107581 2/The-RAF-bomber-pilot-single-handedly-recover ed-body-pilot-comrade-lost-Berlin-raid-60-year s-ago.html

What a fantastic story in these days of gloom and despair. Here we have a chap that has devoted a large part of his life, to try and find the body of his fellow airman, and has succeeded after more than 60 years.

Here were young men in their early twenties and some time even younger, who nightly went out into the skys above occupied Europe, some who came back and many who never did.

Could anyone imagine some of the posters on this site, or some of the young layabouts on our streets, in this day and age? possibly sacrificing their lives to defend our country?

[Postdog]

I take it he's not Muslim then...........?

[pips1]

Wow, what a story! Makes you feel good doesn't it? You are so right though what you said in your last sentence, mind you, you'll only get abuse for saying it.

[BertiWooster]

Well , if national service was still in place or there was another world war / or part , or some such scenario ; they wouldn't have a choice would they .

In that respect your question is academic

[jake-the-peg]

Wonderful men - like my Great Uncle

Conscripted into the first war, killed in the trenches before he knew it, name mis-spelt on his grave.

Great sacrifice to stop some German with a handlebar moustache muscling in on our empire.

I wonder what he'd think of it all ?

[Quinlad]

I think it's genuinely heart-warming that someone devotes so much of their time to a good cause.

Imagine what he could have achieved if he'd spent that commendable time and energy saving lives, raising money for charity or campaigning for a good cause rather than seeking out the corpse of someone already dead.

Still, good on him. It's far more than most people do.

[Kromovaracun]

It is a moving and inspiring story. It's genuinely touching that the bond between these men continued to exist for over six decades and in this gesture will have a symbolic resonance permanently.

What I must say I do find distasteful is that you seem to have taken the inspirational emotion of the story and used it to conjur up some kind of 'everything was better in the 40s' sentiment.

Frankly, I hope my generation (the one you're implicitly slagging off) never has to face an experience like those faced by these men. While the story is a powerful and poignant reminder of the sacrifice made by those who died in the various C20 wars, it's also a reminder of how tragic it was.

To answer your question, looking at the people of my own generation around me, I do believe that if there was a WW2-style total war situation (which there isn't, let's be very clear on that), I imagine that plenty would still willingly go and fight (if we ignore conscription for a moment) - you might get a bit more that wouldn't than you did before, but that's because things like pacifism and opposition often come from more education (which seems a fair price to pay , I think)

[sp1814]

AOG

You scupper yourself with that last comment.

You've turned what as a really nice, elegant post into another demi-rant.

Sometimes it's better to concentrate on the positives in life.