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....

[ChillDoubt]

I'll be honest, I'm in floods of tears when I read their particular citations, but especially this one:

"It is not wealth or ancestry
but honourable conduct and a noble disposition
that maketh men great."

Jack Cornwell's headstone.

[Sharingan]

What a charming post.
You seem to be missing the point that no child or young person native to this country anyway has ever been placed in the position that these unfortunate young men were. I think the real tragedy is not the state of 'today's youth' but the fact that the four people you have cited were requried to show their metal to the degree they were. The First World War was an appalling testament to man's inhumanity to his fellow man and the plight of Jack Cornwell's mother dying in poverty because her own son's memorial fund refused to assist her when she was dying is testament to the fact he was a handy hero for the army to recruit more of the same at the time and that the fund was never set up for the benefit of his family in the first place. I think that is reprehensible.
The men themselves were heroes, there is no doubt of that and very worthy of recognition and admiration by all but they certainly shouldn't be used as a club to beat the 'youth of today' with when they have never been asked to prove their worth in even a fraction of ways these poor young men were.

[Gromit]

Ah yes, the good old days when we sent children into battle as cannon Fodder.

Thankfully, that was changed long ago so we will no longer get 15 and a half year olds being awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. There are still plenty of young men volunteering and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan but those being brave tend to be young adults and not children.

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

These poor wretches in your links deserve remembering. But I see little point in comparing them to todays 15 year olds. If it was to prove some kind of point, it didn't.

[anotheoldgit]

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

[grumpy01]

If any politician thought it would save his career it might still happen.

[jake-the-peg]

You seem to have made the assumption that military success is the only criteria worth assessing here.

Of course on that basis they don't have the opportunity.

In 1939 they joined the armed forces to protect the country against a technologically superior force.

Today they get to ride helicopters about to shoot heavy duty machine guns at tribesmen armed with AK47s - to protect - well nothing really.

But anyway what is your response to this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219959/Police-Bravery-Awards-Pc-Alex-Stypulkowski-chased-attacker-despite-stabbed-neck.html

and this

http://www.westmercia.police.uk/news/news-articles/shropshire-police-officers-receive-fire-service-bravery-awards.html

[TWR]

I dare not put my thoughts to this very Important issue.

[jake-the-peg]

Not 'brave' enough TWR? ;c)

[anotheoldgit]

jake-the-peg

/// In 1939 they joined the armed forces to protect the country against a technologically superior force. ///

/// Today they get to ride helicopters about to shoot heavy duty machine guns at tribesmen armed with AK47s ///

You seem to have done a copy & paste exercise from a previous post of yours.

As I have said before, if we were not fighting with one hand tied behind our backs and were able to use the weapons that we now possess, there would not have been many 'tribesmen' with AK 47s' left to fight from almost 'Day One'.

[jim360]

If you pick the best of yesterday, and the worst of today, you shouldn't be too surprised to find that they don't match up. Undoubtedly some of the young people who fought in the First World War were among the bravest people you could ever wish to meet. There were also some who ran from the fighting, or who couldn't face up to the horror. Their stories are often not so well remembered, which is a pity, as they were victims just as much as anyone else.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/shot_at_dawn_01.shtml

Who knows which side I would be on this? Would I be brave in the face of near-certain death, or would I shrink into a hole and wait to die? I'm just thankful that I'm unlikely ever to find out.

[pixie373]

I agree with Sharingan completely.

[jake-the-peg]

Not copy and paste but I thought it bore repeating as it was relevant

There is a considerable degree of bravery involved in fighting against a superior force wouldn't you agree?

I mean most medals are handed out for individuals who have found themselves outgunned

I really have no idea what point you're trying to make about one hand tied behind our backs in the context of this discussion.

Are you suggesting it would be braver to use nuclear weapons?

Sounds as if you'd rather just ignore civillians on the quest to - well to do what exactly - what do you think the objective in Afghanistan should be?

Conquest? - Colonisation?

But back to the point - when you are a massively superior force with air superiority, night vision equipment, body armour, electronic countermeasures the opportunities for personal valour are much more limited.

Plus the fact the scale is so much less

For all the stories of 'fallen heroes' the British casulties in Iraq and Afghanistan over more than a decade are less than 25% of UK casulties on D day alone.

Can you imagine if every death at Arhnam occupied as many column inches as a bomb victim in Helmand does today?

[andy-hughes]

Sharingan has it spot on - it's simply not possible to compare young people today with young people then.

Society was utterly different, as were expectations, upbringing, education, and of course the tragedy of the Great War.

You might as well compare apples with oranges - it's meaningless.

[ChillDoubt]

Yeah, you're right, no comparison at all:

http://news.sky.com/story/1123908/walthamstow-teens-in-court-over-alleged-rape


http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-217038461/teenage-oap-killer-sobs.html

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/OAP+STAN+STABBED+IN+HIS+OWN+GARDEN%3B+Vicious+attack+by+raiders.-a063054952

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/Uttlesford/Teen-gang-attack-OAP-in-her-bedroom.htm

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Thugs+attack+61-year-old%3B+Teenage+gang+%27beat+OAP+to+a+pulp%27.-a084083979

http://news.sky.com/story/786556/happy-slapping-gang-pair-admit-killing-oap

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-88784/Schoolboy-stabbed-death-lunch-hour.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259582/Phillip-Lawrence-killer-Learco-Chindamo-released-parole-weeks.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gun-gang-guilty-of-killing-dancer-in-south-london-7808107.html

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CHYQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.standard.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fcrime%2Fdamilola-taylor-killer-ricky-preddie-freed-8613566.html&ei=6XP-UezsJc-0hAfYg4GQCA&usg=AFQjCNFrBWPZntt78W7SLRppkN6yYZpWsw&sig2=o0D9K7ukXGK3ALhEp-XgOQ

[Gromit]

No idea what this thread was supposed to be about?

I am not bothering to look at the links, I can guess their contents from the urls. I am sure there was teenage delinquency a century ago. I am sure they committed rape and attacked people and stole. The idea that they were all angels and heroes a century ago and that they are all nhorrendous and villians now, is of course nonsense.

[Sharingan]

What a weird thread ChillDoubt, why the absolute hatred for teenagers in gernal when only a very small proportion of people behave as those in your links do? It was not all milk and honey one hundred years ago, there were nasty, depraved hateful little thugs about then too ( I can't at this point be bothered to google links to 20 of them but that might change yet), just as there are teenagers today who if they were placed in the same situations as your heroes would behave in thye same way. You can't generalise about entire generations, it's really off.

[Gromit]

// In May 1919 The Times reported General Sir Nevil Macready, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, as attributing recent robberies to men ‘grown callous after four years’ experience of killing’. He also feared that a battle-hardened husband might now murder his wife rather than, as before the war, administering ‘just a clip under the ear’. In the summer of 1919 Philip Gibbs, a highly respected war correspondent, sought ‘to get deeper into the truth of this war’ and its immediate after- math, no matter how painful it might be. In the concluding chapter of his book he lamented how ‘the daily newspapers for many months have been filled with the record of dreadful crimes, of violence and passion. Most of them have been done by soldiers or ex-soldiers.’ Gibbs believed that a significant minority of front-line soldiers had returned seriously altered by their experiences. //

http://oro.open.ac.uk/10655/1/

[jim360]

If I could be bothered, I could also grab twenty or so links about the older generation of today being brutal thugs, and that of yesteryear being darling angels. What is your point? You're just selecting the extremes, and assuming that they reflect the general truth, which is a very poor basis for making a point.

[ChillDoubt]

No idea what this thread was supposed to be about?
--------------------------------------
The first link in the OP explains it, I just digressed whilst thinking about young men/youths who were awarded the VC and speculated if any of today's youth would be capable of similar acts in perilous circumstances.

Forget I asked Gromit, it's obviously something you're not interested in.

[Gromit]

ChillDoubt,

My Grandfather lost both his brothers in the carnage of WWI and I am well aware of the bravery and sacrifice that occured. And I am very interested in the subject and I have read a great deal about it.

You have crassly tried to connect that, to a handful of examples of young thugs, as if you are making an astute observation. You aren't.