For those who don't know the state of play with the increasing programme of pro-military propaganda in the UK, here's a comment from Guardian sports writer (who in fact supports the troops) concerning the increasingly ubiquitous and coercive presence of military personnel and military charities at sporting events (where of course many young working-class men -often not extensively educated- will be present):

"While strolling along the A316 towards Twickenham in a crowd of rugby fans on Saturday afternoon, I bought one of those Help for Heroes wristbands from a couple of girls with a stall on the pavement and was happy to do so, although it seems a perversion of basic decency that successive governments should be willing to send young men and women to defend our liberty – so they say – without taking the full responsibility for what happens to them in the course of their service, leaving it to charities to provide appropriate care and rehabilitation. But it was what happened a couple of hours or so later that activated a lurking thought about the increasing convergence, at least on public occasions, between the military and sport.
As usual before an England international at the RFU's headquarters, flags were paraded and laid down around the pitch. The duty was performed by uniformed members of the armed forces: representatives, according to the programme, of the Royal School of Military Engineering, the Royal Engineers, the Army recruiting staff, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the Guards Division.
This sort of thing seems far from abnormal at Twickenham, where in the old days you could imagine a fair number of regular attendees turning up in regimental ties. There has also been an amount of cultural crossover in the England team, through such players as Rory Underwood, the flying winger of the 1990s, who earned his living in the dying days of the amateur era as an RAF pilot, Tim Rodber, a back-row forward in the 1999 World Cup squad, who served in the Green Howards, and Josh Lewsey, the full-back of the 2003 World Cup winners, formerly a Sandhurst graduate and, for two years, an officer in the Royal Artillery. And then there is the coaches' habit of toughening up their players by sending them on SAS courses.
Football lacks quite the same umbilical connection to the military, but it is trying hard to make amends. At Wembley in the last year or so the military presence has been inescapable, the stadium being invited to applaud soldiers who have just returned from, or are about to set out for, Afghanistan. Last Wednesday, under the FA's Tickets for Troops scheme, 1,000 members of the armed forces were invited to the match between England and France, and as the teams lined up before the kick-off, the players were required to shake hands not just with the representatives of their respective governing bodies but with members of the high command of the British army, air force, navy and marines.
It all seems a bit odd – a bit too insistent, almost coercive, like television presenters being required to wear poppies for a whole month before Remembrance Day, when what should be a private act of homage becomes the subject of moral blackmail."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/nov/22/england-rugby-help-for-heroes

And here's that hymn which lyrically conflates soldiers with "the Prince of Peace" Christ himself, that prompted me to post in the first place. It became Christmas number one in the UK in 2011 and sold more than half a million copies (though I can't find the full figures) - the UK public are quite easy to get on side with a sob story. Don't get me wrong, I'm guessing it's a tough gig being a military wife, never knowing where your man is going, or when or in what condition he may return. But wherever he may be right now, I believe pretty much everyone would be better off, including both him and his wife, if he simply wasn't out there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h39vBsiR68

By comparison, I've found much of the testimony from Iraq vet's who have spoken out against the war due to the brutality of what they've directly experienced, rather more affecting.