The Heart of Defence: Men and Women of the UK Armed Forces

摘要

Like me, many readers will no doubt have watched the moving BBC Series 'The Last Tommy' that was screened recently. In this year in which we have turned our attention to commemorating the victories at the end of the Second World War and at Trafalgar, it brought home that as well as bringing about momentous strategic shifts in world affairs, war is also an intensely personal business. Today, of the 5.5 million that fought for Britain in the First World War, only a few survive. Similarly, our Second World War veterans are declining in number and most of the National Service generation are now eligible for their free bus pass. And with fewer than 200,000 serving in today's Armed Forces, those with an intimate experience of military operations make up only a small and diminishing fraction of the population of this country.