As chiswickwire said, the one good thing about the monarchy is it prevents us having to suffer President Cameron or President Blair. Heavens, think what President Brown might have inflicted on us.

If Warrington get to Wembley , The only member of the "Royal Family" that should be asked is Sue Johnson.

Thing is , train someone to kill on order , depersonalise people into 'targets' , do you then then wonder why some go off the rails ?

I served for 12 years and I struggled to re adjust to normal life , I was lucky , I could go and knock 3 bells out of other lumpy blokes every saturday .

Theres a lot to be said for compulsory rugby for all demobbed squaddies !

Well this thread has certainly livened up the board

Was intended as tongue in cheek, hence the

Apologies if any offence was caused!

The suggestion that a fair proportion of the armed services are "nutjobs" (I'm sure mental health charities across the country will thank you for that compassionate view) is rather abhorrent.

I know some Accountants who are nutjobs.
I know some Refrigeration Engineers who are nutjobs.

Obviously these people aren't in a vocation where they have access to firearms, but it decent people go to war and come back as "nutjobs" then society has to take some blame for failing to rehabilitate them, or ease them back into civilian life.

I assume the inference is aimed at service men in recent conflicts, given some reporting in the media and some isolated events? Would you consider servicemen who took part in the D-Day landings, for example, to be nutjobs?

Either way, I'm not a Russell Brand fan, or a right-on republican I just feel the monarchy is an outdated institution and it is vaguely obsceene in the era of food banks.

Still, as someone has posted, we have a wonderful democracy .............. thanks to the sacrifices of the armed forces and their ranks of nutjobs.

Beat me to it. Were the shell shocked volunteers and conscripts of the Somme "nutjobs"?

I have no problem with the Armed Forces at all - However, I have a massive gripe with members of these forces automatically being given the title of 'hero' at the whim of right-wing media, like The Sun.

Nobody is forced to join up - It is a job. It is not heroic to go invading foreign lands at the behest of the US Government.

As I said in my first post, there are other professions who deserve the tag 'hero' far more than those in the Armed Forces.