This for me is one of the most important points made on here. Motherwell fans should be proud there is an actual debate on this matter. A debate like this would simply not be possible on the football messageboards of many English clubs, anyone arguing against special treatment for servicemen would be simply shouted down, abused and threatened.
For me, the issue about this current media bandwagon of "heroes" that is undepinning a lot of this positive discrimination for servicemen stuff is that you cannot morally seperate the personal courage displayed in individual situations by our servicemen and the concrete effect of their actions. The actions of our servicemen in the Middle East has been little short of disastrous for the peoples of the Middle East, untold deaths, suffering, collapsed infrastructure, political chaos. And it's been disastrous for our security here too, creating numerous enemies for us across the globe.
This isn't "heroism". It's misguided, naive blundering - and that's using the kindest possible words for the actions of our servicemen.
It's simply wrong that when we have so many sections of our society carrying out socially beneficial dangerous work like firemen and police officers that they get ignored yet a group of workers who have been used as blunt tools by a lying and manipulative establishment get a pat on the back by football clubs.
Some might argue, calm down, it's harmless, a bit of happy-clappy publicity for communities.
But I would question how much this propaganda about "heroes" is being used to bolster support for our continuing disastrous occupation of foreign countries. The WMD argument failed, the biggest electoral fraud in history by the Afghan president our troops are helping to prop up, well, that's another pretty embarrassing one - so what's left for the government to churn out, ah yes, some sentimentalised mush about squaddie and his hardships. Yeah, they'll buy that and the entire warmongering show can be kept on the road.