Is This Any Way To Treat A Hero?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290462/What-way-treat-heroine-Royal-Navy-girl-fought-Afghanistan-told-cover-uniform-Virgin-flight-case-offended-passengers.html

Why do we treat our Armed Force's Men & Women in such a way, look how the U.S. treats theirs.

[Baldric]

Had a mention here

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1223409.html

[Sqad]

AOG...there is a lengthy thread already under way.

[Gromit]

Why is she a hero AOG?

[anotheoldgit]

Yes Baldric & Sqad sorry didn't spot that, but thank you for pointing it out.

[Gromit]

// look how the U.S. treats theirs. //

Yes, let's look instead of just repeating nonsense from the Daily Mail.

There are 1,000,000 US veterans in prison.

Every night, between 150,000 and 200,000 ex military personel sleep rough on the streets in the US, 23% of all homeless people.

Yes, the yanks really know how to respect their soldiers.

[emmie]

can i ask where you got that 1 million figure from US veterans in prison, a link, as there are over 2 and 1/2 million people incarcerated in prisons across the USA and i would find that incredible if 1 million were former service personnel

[Sqad]

em...don't hold your breath for an answer from gromit.....I have asked twice today......no reply.

\\In a 2010 study released by the Institute of Medicine, criminal justice involvement was identified as being one of the most significant problems faced by veterans returning from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some recent estimates place the number of returned veterans in U.S. prisons as being as high as 200,000, with more than half of those veterans incarcerated for violent offenses\\\

This might help.

[emmie]

lots of info, but nowhere does it give a breakdown, though they are top of the league for imprisoning their citizens. Second place Russia/

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

[Gromit]

This was the source of my 1million figure but on further inspection it does seem misleading. It seems to include veterans on community and supervision orders.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-18/news/29968030_1_court-program-army-sergeant-eifert

[Gromit]

// em...don't hold your breath for an answer from gromit.....I have asked twice today......no reply. //

I did reply even though I thought I didn't need to as the answer is obvious.

The reason why successive Governments keep the Winter Fuel Allowance is because it would be very unpopular with grey voters if they scrapped it. It was introduced as an election bribeto gain votes. Whoever takes it away will lose votes.

[Sqad]

Gromit...you did indeed...we crossed posts...apologies.

[emmie]

looking through endless data it seems that a very large percent of the US prison population are black males.. So i would think that a much smaller percentage of the USA prison population are ex service personnel. Not that black Americans don't or haven't served in the armed forces. but suggest that 1 million figure is way off the mark. They don't i suspect treat their ex service personnel well in prison, nor do they seem to treat anyone well, going on any number of documentaries that have appeared on our tv screens in the last few years.

[emmie]

gromit, this thread isn't about the winter fuel allowance, do keep up.

[boxtops]

AOG - who are "we" in your question - why do "we" treat etc..?

The other thread had already established that the decision was incorrect, the Virgin people were wrongly advised by someone from G4S - whose track record at the moment is looking worse by the day. Some one individual needs refresher training in what's acceptable and what's not - nothing to do with "we".

[Sqad]

em....Gromit was answering my query.

[Gromit]

Em10

That was my reply to sqad. Which he had missed on the Winter Fuels thread, so I reposted it here also.

[anotheoldgit]

boxtops

/// AOG - who are "we" in your question - why do "we" treat etc..? ///

It's a term of generality, when one cannot name each on individually.

ie. "look how the U.S. treats theirs". This obviously doesn't mean the whole of the United States.

[anotheoldgit]

Why are the number of service or ex service personnel in prison, specially numbered?

Why not police or ex police, firemen, ambulance personnel, doctors, plumbers, bricklayers, etc, etc, etc.

[DTCwordfan]

Gromit, you don't half come out with it.....

In the UK, some 7 to 15% of the prison population is thought to be ex military....that suggests say 10000 prisoners here and with a prisoner costing £50k a year that's a nice hefty budget spent.

In Scotland alone, there are 350k folk who sleep rough, of which they have estimated 100k are ex military...that's more than the current army!

The point is that something is seriously wrong with our exit programmes from the military back into society and no party seems to grasp this one. We take these 16-20 year olds and teach them everything from cleaning their teeth to how to wipe their backside (and I am serious - ask a squaddie), turn them into a killing machine (a lot of them) and then when it comes to exiting, the investment into re-integrating them is pathetic, little reconditioning programmes, no mentoring, very little job support etc.

So there is a win-win here, spend say 50 mln on beefing exit programmes and reduce a lot of these "costs" that we see. Of course, it will take a few years to be cumulative in effect but it's something we should see.

As to the story about this girl, a typical Mail headline grabber. Yes, it should come to light but what do we have here, a screw up by an over-zealous security team and a misjudgement by Virgin - for which Virgin have apologised and I am sure that the girl will be adequately compensated by a few judicious upgrades to their BusinessFirst......end of matter.