Sensible even:
VJ Day: Armed Forces charities fear support for veterans will dwindle after Second World War passes from living history
That’s the last time an entire, generation had to turn out. Since then it has been much, much, smaller – and voluntary – forces. So, there’s less requirement for the aid and help that charities provide once that generation has doddered off into the grave.
Yes, yes, of course, there are jobs in the charitable bureaucracy to protect but…..
Help for Heroes seemed to do OK fairly recently. So I would expect there to be support from charities if it becomes required in the future.
“from and for” I should have said.
Surely we will get that Blitz spirit back, for this year, never was so much owed by so few to so many.
There was a resurgence of remembrance starting maybe 15 years ago after it had almost faded into obscurity. I think it was a deliberate effort provoked by the observation at the time that though the survivors of WWI were almost all dead, that the needs of the survivors of WWII hadn’t even peaked yet, so the Poppy Appeal had to ramp up again.
Hang on, plenty of non-volunteers were involved in military action post WW2 – the UK sent lots of conscripts to Korea. Many of the Glorious Glosters didn’t volunteer to be shot at by Chinese communists on a hillside in Korea, they were National Service men. Ditto those who fought (and died) in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and Suez.
After care for ex-servicepeople over here seems to be a bit ad-hoc. I get the impression the MoD isn’t that interested. In the US they have the Veterans’ Administration, but then I think of Reagan’s “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”, so is that much better?
The resurgence of charitable donations, Help for Heroes etc, started at the same time as U.K. forces started becoming visibly involved in wars again – Iraq, Afghanistan etc. (They’ve been involved somewhere non-stop since 1945, but the public don’t really notice.)
People react t9 what they see and hear in the media and what happens to people they relate too – young serviceman blinded, crippled. On television runn8ng marathons, rowing the Atlantic asking for donations.
The handful of veterans from 70+ years back, not so much.
As the British become a minority in Britain, of course British history and British interests will fade.
That is ignoring the schools that teach there was little moral difference between Churchill and Hitler.
Tractor Gent
Yes the Veterans Administration runs its own hospitals. The only health service that is as shit as the NHS, I’m told.
Given we’re talking Forces, charities and hospitals:
1. There is an American charity called the Fisher House Foundation which provides accommodation for families of service people and veterans in the vicinity of Service and VA hospitals.
2. The shrinking of the British Forces over the years means the the various Service hospitals that used to exist across the country were deemed surplus to requirement and the residual demand was met by the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, collocated with the NHS in Birmingham. Most Service medics are posted to RCDM at some stage where they will treat NHS as well as Service patients as part of their professional broadening.
3. When Selly Oak Hospital closed a decade ago and moved to the newly built Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, the chief of the QE charity noted that point 2 meant that all personnel medevacced for serious injury (of whom there were a depressingly large number coming out of Afghanistan at the time) ended up in Brum, whether they were based at Lympstone or Lossiemouth, which made it coming to support their loved ones a somewhat costly endeavour for their families. So, also having noted 1, he hied off to the US of A to pick the Fisher House Foundation’s brains on what they did. The Foundation was more than happy to share designs, operating procedures and lessons learnt; indeed, at the end of the meeting Mr Ken Fisher asked “So, would you like a million dollars to get it going?” After about a microsecond of thought this kind offer was accepted and with this, along with support from Help for Heroes and other Service charities, Fisher House UK was established.
‘VJ Day: Armed Forces charities fear support for veterans will dwindle after Second World War passes from living history’
So Armed Forces charities will be forced to get real jobs. They fear loss of support for themselves.