The Tyranny of Home

...not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

A Brother Officer has just been returned from some frontline ethnographic fieldwork with British soldiers of the 2030s. After conducting numerous interviews and drafting more than his fair share of memos for contemporary forces, he decided to pen this stylised and unclassified account so that some of the messages can reach the people of our own time.

Alexander The Great at Opis

General Smith stood facing east at the Karelian Isthmus. He was wearing his easily distinguishable MTP Barbour wax jacket, lined with the fleece of a black bear he had hunted at Zakopane while recovering from a gun shot wound. The King’s Own Europa Infantry somewhere in the panoply of reviews, reforms, and resubordinations traced their lineage to the The Thin Red Line who served in these Crimean fields two hundred years before.

To survey the men before him brought him back to those pictures in the joint soldiers/NCOs/officers’ mess. The one of slouched Grenadiers that hung above the Monster energy vending machine beside the warrior neutral toilets. The men were tired, months of campaigning had drained their physical strength. Rest & recuperation was no longer offered in the war after a KPMG-led efficiency review into Defence spending noted how much money the MOD were spending on flights.

Like Alexander at Opis, Gen Smith knew he would need to appeal to their sense of honour, duty and camaraderie to steel them for the season ahead. He looked out for faces to help him deliver his message. A wan yet kindly one stared back at him. ‘Private Jones, I remember your brother who died so bravely at Putinograd. Tell me, are his family content with the war pension they received?’ Private Jones shuffled as he mustered the strength to straighten his body when addressing the General, ‘well Sir, the Treasury said because his death occurred to an FPV drone, it was AI-related and didn’t qualify for a war pension. His wife has sold one of the children on the Qatari slave market to make ends meet for the others’. Blast, the good general thought to himself. Damn bad start! This man seems focused on his family.

He peered further back in the ranks, hoping for an NCO to help deliver the message. ‘Ah Sgt White! Are your family helping you to fulfil the sense of duty a SNCO needs in my regiment?’. Sgt White avoided eye contact with his commander, ‘Well Sir unfortunately the mould in my quarter is so severe that now my children are in the hospital. Since the government removed primary healthcare supports for serving personnel I am now in crippling debt paying for their care’. The General fumed internally, grinding his teeth as he thought of another coward thinking of the home front while his family failed to keep the fires burning.

He continued to look further back. An officer must step up now. The towering figure of Lt Roland came into view. Lt Roland, an old boy of Eton and former rower had added a bar to the Military Cross he won at Sevastopol. Roland’s father had been the general’s company commander when he first commissioned. His height and aloof demeanour made him recognisable to anyone. General Smith knew an Officer, and especially a Roland would heed the call to muster the men to arms.

‘Lt Roland?’ bellowed the General. ‘SIR’ Lt Roland triumphantly responded, reflecting the sense of martial spirit imbued in him since he was in the crib. ‘Can we count on you to lead the first troop of FV432s across the isthmus? To chase the routed enemy like your father did at the Fifth Battle of the Irpin River?’ Lt Roland hunched inwards ever so slightly. “I will try Sir once the BEME¹ completes the water traverse risk annex on them. My father tells me these are old vehicles that precede even his youth however the BEME is adamant that any equipment care issues are due to troop commanders not getting amongst Level 1 maintenance’. General Smith was perturbed. Not like a Roland to offer critical insights when challenged.

General Smith could sense the men’s spirit was wavering. It appeared they were focused on things like family or home or the quality of their equipment. These considerations were not for men at the front.

Return of the Wounded Soldier (1854) by Domenico Induno

1. Brigade Electrical and Mechanical Engineer.