Originally Posted by Tigs2
greycoat
Its quite a nice tale of what one family experienced at Sea World in terms of the tribute to all servicemen and women. I wish i had been there. Does anyone know if they still do this?? I also had problems with the first link to the ad. There is a good link on this page.
Not only do they still do this, Tigs, but this year (at Seaworld in San Diego) they single out British servicemen! Last year, they asked for all US military personnel to stand, then members of other military allies in Iraq (sit down you Frenchies!!). This year it is US military, British military and, finally, all other allies in Iraq.
On the subject of wearing uniform in public, a colleague of mine had to fly in uniform within the States, recently. Just before the flight departed, the captain drew attention to his presence on the aircraft and thanked him for his service - to which a spontaneous round of applause broke out.
And finally, a bunch of British and US military colleagues and I were eating in an American restaurant recently and, because we were guests of the Americans and it was semi-formal, we were in uniform. A diner at the restaurant paid for all of our meals and left, without saying anything to us, but simply asked the waitress to pass on his appreciation for our service.
Sadly we will never see anything similar in the UK. Whilst we can be a bit cynical about the American attitude to their military, they do have a genuine respect for them. That said, the average American serviceman does have a genuine respect for his uniform, which I would argue that their British counterpart probably doesn't (of course, I would further argue that that is because he is encouraged not to!). The average civvy's encounter with a serviceman is probably limited to watching some impressive vomiting/fighting on a Saturday night in a Garrison Town!
