UK spits in the face of WW2 man.

While I can never support war, nor see it as anything other than failure and not to be celebrated, the men that risked their lives, and lost their comrades deserve to be respected and looked after. Shame on this Gov of pretenders that sit in London.

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UK hero's WWII medals on sale to pay for aged care

The family of a British WWII hero has put the pilot's war memorabilia up on sale as they struggle to pay off the old man's nursing care. UK veterans and elderly increasingly face financial difficulties with a slow economy and hiking commodity prices.

The auction lot includes Branse Burbridge’s medals, flight jacket and flight logs.

Once a war hero and a top flyer, Burbridge is 92 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. RT's correspondent Sara Firth met with his daughter in London.

"I said ‘look Dad, these are your medals and we’re selling them," Sarah Christine says, "And there was a smile and there was a sort of recognition that these were his, so I have no doubt he has some understanding of what’s happening."

The family expect to raise more than 100,000 pounds at the auction and with their father’s nursing home costs averaging 50,000 pounds a year, the money will go a long way to paying for his treatment.

Branse Burbridge began the war as a conscientious objector, but ended it as arguably one of Britain’s most prolific night-flyers and a decorated war hero.

"The story goes that he never aimed for an enemy cockpit - he only ever aimed for the engines, hoping that maybe lives would be saved, and was always pleased to see a parachute emerge from an enemy plane," David Erskine, auctioneer from Dix Noonan Webb says.

In the UK, veterans receive a tax-free pension, but with sky-high living and care costs, often that’s not enough and politicians have been criticized for abandoning veterans in their hour of need.

It's estimated that ex-service personnel account for around 1 in 10 of the UK's homeless.


http://rt.com/news/uk-heroes-sell-medals-078/

 

And those who didn't fight in WW2 don't deserve to be respected or looked after?

I'm full of admiration for people like this man who sacrifices so much in the war but I don't see why it should make them more worthy or quality care in their old age than anyone else. This kind of sentimentalism only serves to distract from the very real difficulties faced by so many pensioners and their families.

Of course, that's what this tabloid trash is all about.

 

A man who risked death so his country remains free and so the subsequent generations can spout nonsense like that is not worth more than a man who has spent his life defrauding, fiddling taxes and philandering? Bizarre point of view.

 

Of course not! I was clearly making a point about comparing people who fought in the war and people who didn't in general. A full set of individual characteristics determine the "worth" of a person, not a single binary statement. After all, it's perfectly possible for someone to be a war hero and a fraud or philanderer.

The fact is that had this man been exactly the same apart from having not fought in the war, but was still selling something of equal sentimental value to pay for care costs, he wouldn't have had a tabloid story published about him. It's ridiculous to make "having fought in WW2" the sole defining feature for someone being worthy to receive suitable care in their old age.

 

No one suggested that.

 

No more than any other human on the planet.

 

Rapists? Child molestors? Anyone?

 

I said anyone, didn't I?

 

What makes them deserving cases?

 

They are Human.

 

Questionable.

They merit nothing, other than to be locked away or executed.

 

What if they served in WWII and molested children? Would those things cancel eachother out?

Who's better, a draft dodger, or a WWII vet who molests children?

 

No.

.

 

Hear that flapping sound? It's the wings of chickens coming home. Since Thatcher the Tories have been determined to dismantle the British welfare system and this is what it looks like.

 

Does a WWII vet who molested children deserve more respect than the average person who molests children?

 

The UK has been spitting on humanity with bullets, bombs, chemicals etc. for a long time.
The Prime Minister of Britain even accused Britain of worshipping Molech in 1857 when they were busy slaughtering the people of Sepoy India for not wanting to be ripped off by the British East India Company.

The geniuses that run Britain even had the gaul to accuse the people of Sepoy of rebellion & mutiny, when it was the British who were treacherous cruel rebels to their promises to India.
Later on Britain bombed 2 cities in Japan in 1865, attacked the Zulus, attacked the Boers and put their women and children in concentration camps to starve to death, invaded China to force them to allow British opium merchants in China, started the trouble in Palestine with the Balfour declaration, started a war with Germany, bombed the villages of Iraq with poison gas and time delay bombs, started a war with Germany, bombed Germany civilians exclusively at night, helped the Soviets kill millions..............etc. etc.................

 

All true Ivan, Britain was a colonial and imperial power and they weren't very nice about it in many places. I don't know if anyone would even bother to deny that.

 

Of course that is true. However, it is rather straying from the point, which is that a man should be able to grow old with dignity.

 

Sure, dump the baby with the bath! And to say he risked his life for the freedom of his country is a blatant lie. England was the aggressor. Germany offered its hand more than twice to make peace with England, but no, Germany and its people had to be destroyed, eradicated. That was England's mission from the start.
How many German civilians, especially women and their kids did this veteran kill? He flew night after night his bombing missions over German cities.

Of what use are his killing memorabilia to him now? To use having to sell that stuff as an accusation on how poorly respected British veterans are, is, imho, pulling this issue purposely into the limelight to glorify bomber Harris and his gang once more.

Sure, this old man can't be blamed for going to war, he and millions more had to follow orders.

 

i suppose i missed that part in history class were England annexed Austria, invaded Czechoslovakia, had Germans attack a German outpost wearing Polish uniforms, invaded Poland because of it, and then blitzed France. wow, how can such historical errors persist? An yes, i understand that the chastisement of the Germans after WW1 was a cause of WW2. does not make those actions "right" or "just".

 

Name a country that has never violated human rights. Even the Vatican has done evil things. see: Albigensian Crusade 1209-1229

 

He began as a consencious objector.

When active, he would not fire at the cockpit, and was thrilled when he could see the other fighter pilot parachute to safety.

Sounds like ethics that sadly lack among the kid killing Israel's and the raping US soldiers.

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He began as a consencious objector.

When active, he would not fire at the cockpit, and was thrilled when he could see the other fighter pilot parachute to safety.

Sounds like ethics that sadly lack among the kid killing Israel's and the raping US soldiers.

 

That actually sounds like he was a fighter pilot, not a bomber pilot. His job would have been to accompany the Squadrons of bombers and fight off German attackers.

I found a lovely site with Great Aviation Quotes:

To the aircraft I aim, not the man.

— Francesco Baracca, Italy's leading ace of WWI, in Italian "è all'apparecchio che io miro non all'uomo," the prancing horse emblem he sported on his aircraft was used by Enzo Ferrari on his cars. Corpo Aeronautico Militare, 34 victories WWI.

. . . my pilot pointed to his left front and above, and looking in the direction he pointed, I saw a long dark brown form fairly streaking across the sky. We could see that it was a German machine, and when it got above and behind our middle machine, it dived on it for all the world like a huge hawk on a hapless sparrow.

— James McCudden, VC, RFC.

It was war. We were defending our country. We had a strict code of honor: you didn't shoot down a cripple and you kept it a fair fight.

— Captain Wilfrid Reid 'Wop' May, RFC, 13 victories WWI.

I hate to shoot a Hun down without him seeing me, for although this method is in accordance with my doctrine, it is against what little sporting instincts I have left.

— James McCudden, VC, RFC, 1917.

My habit of attacking Huns dangling from their parachutes led to many arguments in the mess. Some officers, of the Eton and Sandhurst type, thought it was 'unsportsmanlike' to do it. Never having been to a public school, I was unhampered by such considerations of form. I just pointed out that there was a bloody war on, and that I intended to avenge my pals.

— Captain James Ira Thomas 'Taffy' Jones, RFC, 37 victories in 3 months W.W.I.


Lots more here:
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/combat.html

 

in a nursing home? doesn't the british government pick up the cost of veterans nursing home expenses?? and 50,000 pounds a year? sounds kinda steep to me.

 

It is a cattle market and an expensive one at that.

Many of them have been and are a TOTAL disgrace, and need shut down, and the staff sacked.