ARmy Rumour SErvice

Maybe I'm going through one of those stages of life where it's better to remember the past than it is to look to the future. But you see I want the Cold War back; it just seemed a better era than what we have today.

When two different political cultures faced each other over a clear line drawn across Europe and observers stared at each other across no mans land wondering what the other was thinking; when the threat of aggressive action from either side was so alarming that it's extent could never be gauged because we all knew. We all knew that it would all end in tears and all end in world-wide catastrophe. When foot soldiers from both sides of the walled divide spent there entire lives painting out dated and mechanically useless equipment, drinking copious amounts of cheap alcohol or playing somewhat pointless war games whilst scientists with heads made of Teflon created ever more powerful buckets of sunshine to rain down on each other.

So why do I miss it? Because the world was a safer place then; nobody cared much for Islamic extremists, the Middle/Near/Far East was simply areas of this planet that were kept under communist control or bribed to steer clear from the teachings of Lenin. They posed no real threat to the stability of our lives even as the mighty Soviet Empire battled with renegade Afghans, Britain policed the Micks in a cat and mouse game and America marched up and down along the line drawn across the Koreas.

So I want my Cold War back. Ok, I can’t have the original so I want Cold War 2. I want the Old Guard back in power in the Kremlin with the tanks rolling through Warsaw, Prague and Budapest. I want to see the Soviet armies re-established and good old commie bricklayers hard at work building that wall. Take me back to a time when we didn’t need a Europe united by a trading market or a common currency; when everyone in western Europe had their own currency, their own army and their own border controls; when everyone in Europe were united by fear and the need to defend rather than the need for petty bureaucracy. That way all the ‘essential’ Polish workers can be sent home and the big issue doesn’t need to be sold by the Romanian homeless; we don’t have to suffer Russian ownership of everything from football clubs to essential services; we can have our crime home grown and taken out of the hands of Eastern Europeans and placed firmly in control of suited East End villains, psychotic Glaswegians and mental Mancunians; no longer will we have to tolerate stabbings from Kosovans or Albanians although we might return to the more intriguing scenario of a Bulgarian being stabbed in the arrse with a poisoned brolly; and we might have our fruit picked by Englishmen and women rather than hoards of Eastern European gypsies.

So there you go; I want my Cold War back. Or rather I want Cold War 2. Not that the MoD are likely to call me up as an essential element in the defence of Europe. FFS, I’m a spacker 8 days away from my 50th birthday! So maybe I really want Cold War 2 followed by the previously anticipated WW3. No nukes mind but Soviet Shock Armies sweeping through Germany, Scandinavia, the Lowlands and France (especially France). And then I can don those old combats, denims, woolly pully and the 58 webbing that I can’t find it in my heart to put on E-bay. I might not be called upon to fight a retreat off the beaches of France but I somehow see myself as a Dads Army Sgt resplendent in 80’s gear and armed with an old SLR brought out of stock. A last line of defiance in a much missed conflict that failed to materialise before!

But that’s because I’ve been drinking again!

in fairness the music was better and the TA was preparing to to defend hearth and home from legions of imperial storm troopers (who no doubt had AT AT walkers) not being a temping agency.

k13eod, can i join this new dads army of yours? I am only 40 but I still hav my O/cdt bars so can be the unit sprog officer?

Trotsky