UNITED KINGDOM: BRITISH ARMED FORCES WORRIED ABOUT RECRUITMENT AS YOUNG POPULATION SHOW LACK OF DISCIPLINE

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of the British Armed Forces, stated recently that the quality of new recruits to the British Armed Forces reflected the lax society in which we live. “The youngsters do not have any sense of discipline and they are not prepared for the demands of behaviour (placed on them), which means that the Armed Forces receive inadequate recruits, who grew up without knowing how to behave. This decline in behaviour seriously affects recruitment”. Certainly the United Kingdom is not the only one to suffer the consequences of an undisciplined youth, caused by an over-indulgent parent population, reacting against the rigours of their own upbringing. The dividing line between educating and spoiling is a thin one. Basically, children like the rules to be explained to them, they need to know until what point they can go. If nobody explains or enforces the rules, if society takes authority away from the agents who traditionally imposed these rules (teachers and the police force) and if working parents are too tired to enforce them at home, the ingredients for social breakdown are very easily produced. Such societies as that in the USA, where the family unit is breaking down, 40 million children being born to single-parent families and a third of all families being broken, are now encroaching into Europe. Drug use follows and creates further social breakdown, as “alternative families” are sought and the protection and comfort of an “alternative society” is found.

JOHN ASHTEAD, PRAVDA.RU, LONDON,