Nutloose - well said.
Remember the old recruiting adverts along the lines of "It's not a job, it's a career" ?
Forgive me but I don't believe shop assistants or nurses had to go through basic training, bull nights, beastings, Tacevals, 4 or 6 month detachments to places where if you didn't have a sense of humour you would go mad, and in the last decade + the very real risk of dying. With apologies to the aircrew who, during the Cold War, did more than their fair share of attending funerals.
Okay those who served in the 80/90's did not face muck and bullets on a regular basis, if ever, but there was a sense of 'all in it together'
And that has stuck with me throughout my post RAF life. Probably more than I like to admit.
So, if I lived nearby, I would have gone to the chaps funeral. Not because I felt obligated, or wanted to somehow prove I am a better man.
But because in his life he was part of something that I was also part of.
Put it this way. If a number of Forces people had gone, you reckon there was a chance someone might have said 'Anyone fancy a pint' ?
And I like to think that a number of hours later some very happy people having 'pulled up that sandbag, swung that lantern' and for a while remember something much, much bigger than themselves.
I await incoming.