Thread: Wounded UK Soldier Refused Hotel Room

Originally Posted by HistoricalDavid

If you can't get over-the-top irony then it's hardly my problem. I don't think being a soldier is about crass intimidation, even my tiny smidgen of military experience (OTC) confirms that. Among the usual elements of courage, duty, etc, in a Western society the soldier is not above civilian restraints. I'm not one of the family - your wonderful attempt to crush me - but I am a citizen and taxpayer.

But, what am I and civvies to think, if you continue using this self-stroking 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' language? Is it the proud and honourable stance of a soldier?

Independent of what I think, the reputation of squaddies in public is damaged enough and while fights with civvies in pubs and clubs is one thing, what you're doing is quite another. It's revelling in this wonderful 'yerrr, get the lads down to teach them a lesson, nudge-wink' which does no-one any favours except your own egos. Or maybe it does work, this semi-legal system of intimidation? I'm not one of the family, I wouldn't know...



Christ, really foaming at the mouth aren't you? It's a five-line sentence, half of which doesn't address the point, that this the UK is supposed to be free and capitalist?

As was (quite recently, though) the issue in UK media, do you support the right of hotel owners to refuse double rooms to homosexuals? What about the Catholic adoption agencies matter? Do soldiers deserve legally mandated (or squaddie-mob-enforced?) protection against discrimination above and beyond that afforded to the rest of us peasants, and is this not crass militarism?

Irony H/D no not ironic remarks , stupid ones as has been shown in another persons post , jlfvr . Sorry you didnt get the answer you thought i would give .nudge nudge wink wink . And in the very 1st post on this subject , it says , the times of london reports that the soldiers supporters want to punish the hotel ,, i wonder who is supporters are ??? Soldiers or civilians , but it doesnt say what type of punishment , looks like your in the minority here H/D


H/D ,What two people get up to as consenting adults as to their sexual preferences is none of my concern or my business, so the answer there is no i dont support it . As to the religeous Catholic adoption agency ,, no comment ,, i know nothing of this , i dont do religeon and have no interest in it .

And everyone deserves protection from discrimination , soldiers , sailors , airmen , and civilians alike , no matter what colour or creed .

And yes ,when i read about it i was foaming at the mouth ,damn right i was , and i was not revelling in any thoughts of ,, yerrr lets get the lads down , i was stating what i hope would have happened in our family , But i will concede that the hotel management has the right to turn people away , But this MAN was on leave from a theatre of war , injured , and wanted a room , turned away for the fact that he was military and nothing more than that , just what damage was he going to do to their precious hotel on his own ?

No room at the Inn , so piss off and sleep in the manger ??????

They soon backtracked after the public outrage , who did no more than what we would have done ,, showed them the error of their misjudgement , A type of mass civillian crass intimidation maybe ,,


I will make a bet that most of the ex military people on here think the same as I do ref this incident .
As will a lot of people who were never in the military , but ref the crass militarism , dead right , all for one and one for all , why is it that the French can stick together and win disputes ,The Spanish,,, why is it that Gypsies ( hawkers ) in the U/K dont get prosecuted for crimes ( not all i know ) its because they stick together , unlike the Brits who with their +uck you im ok jack attitude never win . But surprise surprise , they actually got something right when they got the public appology for him ?

WE are a family and always will look out for each other , and i do have the old school REGIMENTAL tie dontcha know and wear it with ,,,,,,,,,,,PRIDE .

What you read in the papers ref squaddies and punch ups in clubs and pubs, well guess what , its usually started by the moronic civvie :peasants: who think that because soldiers are on a night out they think that a soldier is fair game for a fight , after all its what they are paid for , to fight , but not all soldiers are brawlers , there are more ways to skin a cat as they say , but they always seem to be fair game , and the media always point the finger at , who ????.

And yes not all soldiers are well behaved, there are elements who bring disrespect to the rest , and i will freely admit to partaking in some bar room brawls with my mates when trouble started , invariably not by us , but by moron civvies pissed on their gyro checks with nothing better to do, who would not listen to reason but were hell bent on getting a good hiding , and they did , but guess who got the blame . That will fuel your view of the tarnished soldiers i guess ? But people who sterotype ALL soldiers as being the same , PISS ME OFF , media mostly and not pointed at you personally, what i admire mostly about this man was the way he conducted himself in a gentlemanly way , not getting into a tussle , or fight , which is exactly what the establishment has trained him to do , but he walked away ,disgusted and brought the incident to the eyes of the public , well done him huh .

Ahhhhhhhh yes H/D the proud and honourable stance of a soldier , as has been stated in another thread ref wearing uniform when not on duty , i did , but never got into any bother , why is that , maybe in my day we were respected for doing a job that not many people would volunteer for , and being military forged bonds which in most cases would never be broken , and the soldier who was turned away was not in uniform , he was dressed as a :peasant : as you like to think civvies are . And in no way did i try to crush you , just give you an insight as to what being in the family meant REGIMENTAL PRIDE

long live the family . Drinks to ,THE REGIMENT

Cant stop , got to go to the pub for a fight , totally stereotyped squaddie dragging my knuckles along the ground behind me ,, grunt grunt .

From a long serving disgruntled and disgusted ex soldier who is ALSO a citizen and taxpayer of the country he served ,and now a civvy peasant , and who cant believe the attitude of some people towards the Military.

And who left with an exemplary record, and totally proud of it .

Happy new year H/D hope we stay friends ,

Originally Posted by Sawadi

While some army personnel can get drunk, many play an important role to protect those at home. So there must be a way to work out a good compromise. I would say that to deny a person a room just because he is a solider is not good policy.

Of course some army personel get drunk sawasdi , same as civilians do , and the most drunken civil population i witnessed were in BKK , Phuket and Pattaya

But unfortunately in the forces drinking was looked upon as the norm ,and to tell you the truth i wish i had never been introduced to it , but a good compromise back then was we stayed on camp to do it ,if a compromise was ever needed ????

And agreed , its a terrible policy to adopt , in this case .

Thankfully this seems to be the exception to the norm, I have never had any problems booking into hotels when I was in uniform and none of the people in my regiment had any problems as far as I know. If there had been problems complaints would be made in the normal way and we might have had a word with the manager, not in any violent or unruly way but just talked to him and asked him why the decision was made to deny the right to stay.
Yes they have the right to decide who stays at their hotel but they should not decide based on what someone's job is, they should decide based on the behaviour of the person(s). It does not seem that this man was being unruly or badly behaved, he was just trying to get a room. Discriminating against him in this way is wholly unjustified as they were denying him the right to stay based on his job and not how he was behaving. If there are a bunch of unruly drunk soldiers yes they would be justified in not letting them stay, but not letting a man stay because of his job and nothing else is despicable.

David,

While I can see your point to an extent,what tankie had said about discrimination against members of the Armed Forces rings true with me.

Back in the late 70's when it was not exactly popular to be a member of the Armed Forces here in the states,my friend and I stood back to back with two Marines who were set upon in a bar simply because they were wearing a uniform.Yes,drinking can become a problem in the service,but it doesn't hold a candle to the general populace in that respect.I'm sure plenty of civilians have caused trouble in that particular hotel but they haven't banned the public for those incidents.It's simply easier to pick out someone in uniform and apply an arbitrary set of rules to them whether fair or not.

P.S. I have to add that during the above mentioned altercation I was part of the drunken civilian population,just thought what was happening wasn't right.

Originally Posted by Shamus

David,

While I can see your point to an extent,what tankie had said about discrimination against members of the Armed Forces rings true with me.

Back in the late 70's when it was not exactly popular to be a member of the Armed Forces here in the states,my friend and I stood back to back with two Marines who were set upon in a bar simply because they were wearing a uniform.Yes,drinking can become a problem in the service,but it doesn't hold a candle to the general populace in that respect.I'm sure plenty of civilians have caused trouble in that particular hotel but they haven't banned the public for those incidents.It's simply easier to pick out someone in uniform and apply an arbitrary set of rules to them whether fair or not.

Shamus the point is he was,nt in uniform apparently it was when he handed his I/D card over to prove who he was , it was his military I/D and thats how they knew he was military ? If he had shown a drivers licence or passport ,, no problem ??