Fascinating thread. It's easy to fall into the trap of "fings ain't what they used to be," and I too can bore for Britain on the topic of, "I miss the Service I joined, I don't miss the one I left," and it tickles me pink to see the "one I left" in 1995 now held up as the good old days.
In answer to the OP's question; wind the clock back to 1976 with me as teenager who'd wanted to be a pilot since he could remember, and of course I'd join up. Funnily enough, no sooner had I arrived on the UAS than I discovered that all the QFIs bar the boss had PVR'd and, over a few pints, could be heard complaining that, "It's no fun anymore, not like the old days etc." I knew they were probably right, but at that age, the prospect of flying one of Auntie Betty's pointy aeroplanes and actually being given a few beer vouchers for doing so, was all I cared about. I'm sure there's no shortage of youngsters out there who feel the same now. However, give them a few years, an idiot boss with the career light on, too much nif-naf, a marriage and a couple of kids, a posting to Afghanistan or somewhere really remote like Valley, and they'll turn bitter and twisted just like so many others.
I think there's a grain of truth in the, "It's not the Service I joined any more," line but I think it's we who change most as we get older and our priorities evolve. That said, I spent 19 years in the RAF and apart from time spent working for people like the B-word, I look back on it with great fondness, and am equally glad to say that I have never once regretted leaving.
So would I join up today? No, not even for a chance to fly the Typhoon: 150 flying hours a year if you're lucky, and that leaves an awful long time between trips for the highly-paid help to make your life pretty miserable. In no particular order, here's why I wouldn't:
1. The notion of a 'Military Covenant' between HMG and the Services has become a fiction. Loyalty is now a one-way street and they can't even afford the grease for inserting the cricket bat these days. No more military hospitals, pensions under threat, ditto MQs, allowances cut back etc as many earlier posters have pointed out.
2. And what would I actually be defending if I signed on? The days of the Cold War, with Ivan's tanks only 36 hours from Calais have gone, and I wouldn't trust a government of any colour not to put my delicate pink body in danger, on a political whim, by dragging the UK into another criminally pointless waste of blood and treasure like Afghanistan or Iraq.
3. Finally, it's never been the serviceman's lot to be picky about who he's fighting for, but, looking at the wreck of a country I was once proud to call home, and some of the oxygen-stealing biomass with which it's populated (and no, before anyone gets the wrong impression, that's not a race/immigration thing), then, no, I most certainly wouldn't sign up today to protect them.
As a footnote to my last point, I remember my late father who somehow managed to survive a stint on Hurricanes and 2 full tours on Typhoons, saying, just before he died, 'When I look at the state of the country now, I don't know why I f*cking bothered.' I think he was right.
Last edited by Ali Qadoo; 26th Nov 2012 at 16:50.
Reason: Grammatical howler