by Catherine Lear

Created on: June 12, 2009   Last Updated: September 14, 2009

How many parents have asked themselves this question, but looking at it in a rational way it turns out that no parents send there child of to war, all a parent does is that they see there child go to war. It is the child its self that makes this choice and no other person from the family unit.

Many parents have had to see there children go to war, none more so than at the present time as the war in Afghanistan gathers pace. parents stand with pride as there sons and daughters climb aboard the military aircraft that will take them many miles into the unknown, and as that aircraft slowly disappears into the sky they will slowly turn for home with feeling of loss.

No parent sends there child of to war not in my country at least, they have to be 18 years of age to join the military in Great Britain and as our law stands at the moment you cease being a child when you become 18 years of age.

This means that you can vote at any election, drink alcohol in any bar or pub without fear of being prosecuted and if you wish without the permission of any of your parents or guardian join any branch of the armed forces. Once in the armed forces you can be sent to any war or hot spot in the world. In short, at 18 years of age you have become a man or a woman.

I come from a long traditional military family. My dad joined the army, my Granddad his father fought on the Normandy beaches during the 2nd world war, my dad's uncle fought in the Korean War and made the army his life. Both my Grandfathers dads fought in the 1st world war and both there parents both joined and fought in various conflicts throughout the world. At no time did there parents send them to war, there country did.

My father tells me of the time that he joined the army back in 1968, he never expected to have to go of to war, to him at the time it was just one big adventure for a young man. He soon found out what being a soldier was all about because two years later he was fighting in the Yemen with the Parachute Regiment that he had joined. His father my Granddad had not sent him of to fight in the war the British Government had. Has he says now many years later it was my choice no one else's has to join the Parachute Regiment.

In addition, it was his choice while he was in the Yemen to volunteer and pass the selection course for the Special Air Service and go on to serve with distinction in many theatres of conflict in the world. Sitting in his loft in a wooden box are his many medals to prove it, they gather dust, and he never gets them out. As he says, I do not need to look at my medals to remember what I did.

Above all, it was his choice to do these things no one else's. No one made him walk into that recruitment office his dad never dragged him to that office or made his life a misery until he joined the army; he walked into that office as a man and made that choice as a man. Never make the mistake that parents send there children of to war they do not, they see them go to war and they see them come back from war either alive or dead or wounded and that is quite different.

Having a dad who was in the military and coming from a military family I would not send my child to war, I would never push are chide my child to join the army. But if my child decided that it was his or her duty to serve our county then I would stand proud and wave with tears in my eyes as he or she went into the unknown to there destiny to do what is right for our country that we all live in, as we say in our family, no pain no gain. My dad took his chances and I would expect my child to take his or her chances we all owe it to ourselves and our country to fight for our freedoms that we all seem to take for granted.

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