Hi there,

Im currently a student at the University of Hull studying Media, Society and Culutre. One of my modules is on the concept of freedom. For my essay I have decided to study how the Military regulate freedom for soldiers. I was just wondering if i could have some of your thoughts regarding..

* How free you think you are in the army

* What freedom means to you

* Do you feel you've lost some sense of identity because of rigourous training procedures, discipline, uniform and appearance regulations etc...

* How regulated are you in your behaviour off duty, in terms of manners and such.

* Do you feel you have had to reject (or at least subdue) your own culture in order to serve the nation.

*Also do you feel you have being stripped of your freedoms to some degree in order to uphold the rest of the nations overall freedom?

Well, there the main questions, but feel free to add anything else in relation to your freedoms. A copy of my essay, will be available to anyone that would like to look at it. Anyway, thanks for your time.

Shaun Ransom

I would bother to answer if questions

1. were in a sensible sequence and
2. were clearly defined. ..."etc" and "as such" means nothing to me

Originally Posted by HullUni

Hi there,

Im currently a student at the University of Hull studying Media, Society and Culutre. One of my modules is on the concept of freedom. For my essay I have decided to study how the Military regulate freedom for soldiers. I was just wondering if i could have some of your thoughts regarding..

* How free you think you are in the army

It's a job. I'm as free as the next bloke that passes me in the street. On Operations, lack of freedom is a very welcome thing, for obvious reasons.

* What freedom means to you



* Do you feel you've lost some sense of identity because of rigourous training procedures, discipline, uniform and appearance regulations etc...

Why would I lose identity? By joining the Army, i've gained, not lost. My personal qualities have been enhanced, not subdued. We train people, not brainwash them.

* How regulated are you in your behaviour off duty, in terms of manners and such.

The RMP follow us around off-duty, and discipline us for not helping old ladies across the road. What a bollocks question.

* Do you feel you have had to reject (or at least subdue) your own culture in order to serve the nation.

Again, why would I? Is this a dig in the "The Army are Racists" direction?

*Also do you feel you have being stripped of your freedoms to some degree in order to uphold the rest of the nations overall freedom?

No.

Well, there the main questions, but feel free to add anything else in relation to your freedoms. A copy of my essay, will be available to anyone that would like to look at it. Anyway, thanks for your time.

Shaun Ransom

Very poor. You seem to think the Army is still stuck in the 1940's.

Originally Posted by HullUni

Hi there,

Im currently a student at the University of Hull studying Media, Society and Culutre. One of my modules is on the concept of freedom. For my essay I have decided to study how the Military regulate freedom for soldiers. I was just wondering if i could have some of your thoughts regarding..

* How free you think you are in the army

Freedom is a secondary priority and rightly so. When you’re not on duty you’re for all intents and purposes as free as any other law-abiding British subject. Your actions are limited by your own choices, make the wrong ones and the penalties are there; albeit rather harsher ones than if you were a civvie.

* What freedom means to you

The ability to go about my everyday activities without hindrance; to have a say in how I am governed and by whom; and the knowledge that I am entitled to defend those rights against anyone who’d take them off me.

* Do you feel you've lost some sense of identity because of rigourous training procedures, discipline, uniform and appearance regulations etc...

Quite the opposite. The Army gave me an identity I hadn’t previously had. I’ve been out coming on 8 years now, but I still think of myself as a soldier.

* How regulated are you in your behaviour off duty, in terms of manners and such.

I’m generally polite and well-mannered, considerate of neighbours and try to do my best for those around me. But then the same was true of me before I joined.

* Do you feel you have had to reject (or at least subdue) your own culture in order to serve the nation.

I can’t honestly say I had one before I joined. Certainly not one I was aware of having to reject in order to fit in to army life.

*Also do you feel you have being stripped of your freedoms to some degree in order to uphold the rest of the nations overall freedom?

The freedom to doss around wasting life isn’t really a freedom in any meaningful sense. You can do pretty much anything in the Army you could as a decent law abiding civvie. You could argue that we lose the ability to suit ourselves to a large extent but the same is true of civvies. The difference is quantitative rather than qualitative.

Well, there the main questions, but feel free to add anything else in relation to your freedoms. A copy of my essay, will be available to anyone that would like to look at it. Anyway, thanks for your time.

I don’t see the Army as being there to fight for anybody’s freedoms per se. It’s there to defend our society, parts of which are certain rights and freedoms. The Army was doing that before universal suffrage, for example. I’ve no doubt it’ll still be doing it if we ever became an absolute monarchy again.

Shaun Ransom

P.S. Learn to use the spell-checker, Shaun. You’re making Hull look bad. :D

* How free you think you are in the army

Not as free as a civilian, but only in certain ways. I cannot go on strike, for instance, which is something civvies can do (and rightly so). Our 'sphere' of freedoms is smaller than a normal citizen's, but it is still there.

* What freedom means to you

Freedom to think and freedom of speech, the ability to do what you like as long as it doesn't harm another human being. The freedom to accept responsibilities and rights.

* Do you feel you've lost some sense of identity because of rigourous training procedures, discipline, uniform and appearance regulations etc...

No. Training attempts to teach you a set of behaviours you need to succeed in your role. It does not attempt to change your personality. No matter how clean your bedspace is you are still a slob inside. Some regs are a bit pointless, some are there for good reason (serious facial hair and respirators don't mix well, for instance).

* How regulated are you in your behaviour off duty, in terms of manners and such.

Not very much at all.

* Do you feel you have had to reject (or at least subdue) your own culture in order to serve the nation.

The Army is a culture which you fit into, it does not supplant your own, or attempt to. It does have a strong Christian heritage, but many other cultures and religions have served in it successfully for hundreds of years, so I doubt there are any major problems there. The Army has, if anything, made me more aware of my heritage and my culture (British), and not in the all-white all-Christian all of the time BNP way.

*Also do you feel you have being stripped of your freedoms to some degree in order to uphold the rest of the nations overall freedom?

'Stripped' is too strong a word, it's loaded with connotations. My freedoms have been reduced, and I have done this voluntarily. For the sake of cohesion, efficiency, effectiveness and order I have joined an organisation in which my rights have been temporarily reduced or suspended to ensure the organisation functions properly in defending the country. The only reason this is done is because it is vital, and I have done it voluntarily, and more to the point I can leave and regain my full freedom.

Those freedoms are part and parcel of the country, they are an outgrowth of hundreds of years of civilisation and a very valuable contribution to the modern world and our quality of life. Temporarily reducing my own rights to defend other's rights, lives, etc is not something I lose any sleep over. Perhaps this is contradictory in principle? I don't know.

Compare this to our current government, made up of, and elected by, civilians, which is reducing our freedoms and when we ask for them back says "No, it is not safe to be free." because of an overblown terrorist threat. A real tragedy would be to find that, upon leaving the Army, I have no freedoms to come back to, that I have fought to defend a totalitarian state.

Originally Posted by HullUni

Hi there,

Im currently a student at the University of Hull studying Media, Society and Culutre. One of my modules is on the concept of freedom. For my essay I have decided to study how the Military regulate freedom for soldiers. I was just wondering if i could have some of your thoughts regarding..

* How free you think you are in the army

* What freedom means to you

* Do you feel you've lost some sense of identity because of rigourous training procedures, discipline, uniform and appearance regulations etc...

* How regulated are you in your behaviour off duty, in terms of manners and such.

* Do you feel you have had to reject (or at least subdue) your own culture in order to serve the nation.

*Also do you feel you have being stripped of your freedoms to some degree in order to uphold the rest of the nations overall freedom?

Well, there [are] the main questions, but feel free to add anything else in relation to your freedoms. A copy of my essay, will be available to anyone that would like to look at it. Anyway, thanks for your time.

Shaun Ransom

Shaun, well done for undertaking primary research on a fascinating subject - needs to be more like you! 3rd/4th year project?

Suggest you'd have helped yourself by giving a pre-amble outlining your project objectives and a position statement on the conception of 'freedom', as the Arrsers here have suggested. Possibly a quote from your literature.

It's a little too broad in its scope (e.g. do you want your subjects to be serving or ex-service; value-laden language e.g. 'stripped'), shoddily presented (use of the word 'anyway'; question marks for questions), and clearly aims of the study need focusing more tightly.

Otherwise well done and yes, would love to see the outcome. All the best,

Boom

The Democratic Country of Great Britain is no longer a free country. So as far as the army goes, you're probably just as free as what anyone else is.

The country spends billions of pounds doing so-called-fighting to aid other country's to have freedom; yet our own country suffers from a neglect in investment and suppresion from our own government. All of which is done in the name of freedom, saving the planet from global warming and crime reduction. When really all our elected ministers really want to do is dream up further ways of suppressing the electorate so as to be able to spy on us and make further taxes.

So what are the options?

- Uphold our freedom.
- Control others.

There is no contradiction. It is quite possible to try to control others to uhhold own freedoms.

During colonial period Great Britain tried to uphold its freedom to capture as much lands as possible and to control others.

Now the UK itself is simply unable to contol others (only can help our American friends in this business).

With regards to the poll; I voted mixed feelings.

Overall we are fighting to uphold our own freedom, however to do this we have to control others. Put it this way, if we weren't stopping the "bad" freedom happening in Afghan with the Taliban and other terrorist groups, they would abuse their freedom in such a way as to make bombs etc to use on us, which in turn begins to ruin our freedom.

I'm sure you get the idea of where i'm going, that's extremely waffley lol.
Sorry.

I don't think the armed forces fight for anyone's freedoms, we fight for Britain's interests. Always have always will.