Why would anyone join the armed forces?

With all due respect, Clueless, your observations, are one of those who hasn't served in any of the Services and it's only by doing so that you can have any chance of understanding why a person would join them. Every recruit's reasons for joining are different, some to escape the "dull future" offered by Civvy Street, others to escape from domestic circumstance, some for patriotic reasons [there are those still around], some looking for a trade, some looking for excitement, some who even when a kid sucking a lollipop had only the thought of joining the Services.
Throughout my 22 years in the rif raf I met loads of guys and gals who had joined for so many reasons. Anyone who joins knows the risks of being in the Armed Forces [or if not are soon made aware of them] and, while thinking that it will never happen to them, accept the risks. The circumstances that you describe scathingly

are nothing new. The same rules that restrict the response and maybe even endanger members serving in a hostile environment now were in force a hundred years ago. I spent two years in Aden during the bad times where the Army, Navy and RAF were being shot at, mortared, bombed etc by two terrorists organisations [NLF and FLOSY] and on the 20th June 1967 by the Aden Federal Regular Army who rebelled and in one day we lost 22 of our guys. And then there was the infamous "Crater Incident". We couldn't fire back unless we shouted "Awqif" three times at whoever was shooting at us. We were give a "green card" that basically told us that if we survived being shot at or a grenade thrown at us then we could shoot at the center of the offending persons body...not that they would stay around for that. On Guard Duty in Aden some sentries were given rifles [empty] and a magazine of 5 rounds which they stuck in their pockets as they weren't allowed to arm the rifle until fired at. I don't think anyone then or now in the Armed Forces believe that the Politicians were/are friendly to or understood/cared about them.
It wasn't until 1967 after a certain Corporal Brown [Army] was killed by a grenade and a certain RAF Officer went against all regulations and agreed to his widow's request and contrived [and succeeded] to send Corporal Brown's body home before MOD could stop him that bodies were returned to the UK for burial. If you got killed before that incident you were buried in what was called "Silent Valley" and a photo of the ceremony was sent to the bereaved.
Our Armed Forces are made of human beings with all the qualities and vices that every one has and like all people will react under stress in different ways. There is a perpetual Black Humour that runs through all the Services which helps ease the tension when needed. I remember a Flight Sergeant who first acquainted me when I came out of training with the well known saying "join the Services, see the world and kill people".
The British Armed Forces have always been restricted, hampered, by Politicians, Organisations in the way they behave in combat and they always will be. But I know from experience that the Armed Forces accept that and know the extra risks placed on them by that. There is also an internal sense of discipline among all three Services that keeps a sense of pride and fairness even when fighting an enemy that hasn't got those values.

Regarding the Soldier who gave a dying Insurgent who'd been trying to kill him and his comrades a Coup De Grace I don't condone it but I weigh that against the atrocities committed by the Insurgents and the fact that even during several recent wars no quarter was given and no prisoners were taken by Allied Forces yet that has been ignored by past and present Politicians. No wars are fought with rules by the people fighting them, but by the people who possibly decided to start the war while standing safely on the sidelines not fighting. I do have the feeling that the convicted soldier while found guilty of the crime was also made a scapegoat and example of for political reasons rather than for Justice.

 

Agreed, loli. You also have to take into account that at least one of his buddies didn't agree with his actions as the helmet video was kept for a year, and not wiped, before he was brought to account.

 

Doing a "job" is one thing, Clueless, but he did a thing that most of us wouldn't do and exceeded the internal [partly unsaid] sense of pride and fairness placed by the Service members themselves. To be honest being in the Services is not a job but a mindset as no job can ask of a person what the Services do. My problem with his conviction was not that he was guilty but my suspicion is that the overriding reasons for his trial was not for Justice but for Political reasons [both by the Government and the Senior Military]. Therefore the court lost any sense of independence and was forced along a very straight narrow road ending with an extreme end.

Another example of why things were the same back in the 6o's is that when I was stepping off the aircraft on my first day in Aden there was a "quiet" rebellion going on in our own Armed Forces. Why?, because an RAF Corporal on night sentry duty in a far flung part of the airfield had shot and killed an Arab who he found wriggling through the barbed wire defences. The Corporal claimed he has shouted "Halt" three times as required and also that, in the dark, he thought the intruder had a weapon. If you take into account that the Corporal was a tradesman, not a fully trained soldier, who been given a weapon he'd probably fired once for practice, and was driven out in the dark in a truck, dropped off and left without any water, back up, radio or phone, in basically a desert area where'd he not even been before for supposedly 2 hours, but from experience I know it could be 4 to 6 hours, I think you might understand his circumstances. He was immediately arrested and placed on Court Martial as per protocol. The Aden Government then demanded that the Corporal be handed over to them for trial and our [then Labour] Government actually went into talks about the possibilities of that with the Aden Government. There was a lot of tension in the serving members out there and hence the quiet rebellion. Our Government ended up flying the Corporal back to the UK where he was investigated and found not guilty, but it strengthened the belief that any one in the Armed Forces would be sacrificed, guilty or not, for political ends.

 

Well, it's true when I joined it was a career opportunity as you were immediately asked if you wanted to sign on until the age of 55 in most of the 22 trades within the RAF. So it was a different situation, and a different Air Force, in those days, plus there were a lot of jobs in civvy street in those days.. The Services were independent in that they could service, maintain, repair their vehicles, aircraft, weapons without resorting to civilian contractors. I bought myself out after 22 [pensionable] years in the RAF because it was being reduced in capability and resources where morale had dropped to nearly zero. That took me nearly two years to persuade them that I was serious and wanted to leave. Nowadays, there are very few career opportunities and recruits are offered short term engagements that save the MOD paying out for pensions, etc, and the RAF has to rely on civilian contractors to do second line servicing which I'm pretty certain does not save money overall.

Because people don't change and nor do the circumstances that lead them to it. We seem to follow a repeating path of human history where the same personalities seem to be reborn. Have you not met any one who has made you think he/she was a clone of someone you knew years ago......I know I have many times!!! You might think people are different in this modern day and age but they don't think any different, even though better informed, than the people back in the 60's in their modern days.