Poles join the British Army - maybe

[hollister]

Should we change the rules to let Poles join the British Army?
by MATTHEW HICKLEY - More by this author »
Last updated at 22:00pm on 17th March 2008

Army recruitment officials are calling for a review of the rules on foreigners serving in the British forces after a surge of interest from Poles.
Foreigners are currently barred from joining up unless they first live here for five years and become British citizens, while those from Commonwealth countries can sign up at any time.

But with the Army struggling against a serious manpower shortage, senior officers revealed yesterday that the level of interest from Polish immigrant workers has prompted them to consider changes in the regulations.
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=537509&in_page_id=1770

[freetobe]

Holly,
Forgive my niaviete, but does this interest in British Armed Forces service on the part of Polish immigrants to the UK indicate that military service is an improvement over what their lives in the UK
are currently like? No disrespect to the British military or more importantly the Poles, but if the Brits don't want to serve, why should the immigrant Poles unless they want British citizenship and see life in the military as a means to easily achieve this. What's your take on this?

[leslie]

Freeetobe
An alternative is the suggestion that the Poles prefer to join the British Army rather than the Polish Army! There are plenty of jobs in UK at present for those who want to work (and I would estimate that at least 90% of the Polish immigrants want to do so - God bless them).
Leslie

[freetobe]

Les,
Thanks for your observation. I ask again since I don't know, why do immigrant Poles in the UK find service in the British military more desirable then service in the Polish military? I can make suppositions but don't think that's appropriate. This is a very interesting subject, which I hope will not be ignored.

[hollister]

Well,
All I can surmise from knowing several Polish soldiers - is that currently the Polish Army is undergoing some very stressful changes. When PiS (the Kaczynskis) were in power, one of the things they did was to "clean house" in the military - they attempted to forcibly retire all of the officers who were party members (Socialists) or had been trained in Soviet military academies.
On the surface this looks good and was a popular move. But as will all things innocent people were hurt by the pure black and white of the move. Until recently (the 80's) To become an officer or to move up in the ranks, one HAD to be a party member or attend the military academies - which were all run by the socialists. They did NOT have a choice. Many of these officers only did what they had to do to secure a future for themselves and their families. On the other hand many of the officers were also true socialists. That distinction was perhaps too much to deal with and so a blanket no one who attended the "wrong military academy" or was a party member was thrown over the entire military. To add to this, all military members were required to take an oath of allegiance to the government and they and their families were investigated for collusion with the Socialists. Going through this process once was bad enough - but many were forces to go through it two or even three times as allegations that the people doing the investigations were corrupt!
The end result is that many of the Generals and Cols. were retired - thus the military lost some deadwood but also lost a lot of knowledge and expertise.

In addition, the military is also trying to come up to NATO standards - the Soviets purposely kept the Polish Military under-equipped and denied them access to current technology. (Much as the roads and other such infrastructure was kept to a minimum in an attempt to prevent Poles from moving around much and reliant on Moscow for goods and services).

Now, you begin to see why the Poles are so insistent on the US helping them update their Military to current and future NATO standards in exchange for the Missile shield stuff.

With all of this upheaval - (and I have tried to be as succinct as possible) the military is not an attractive choice right now. Poland is abandoning mandatory military service and shifting to a volunteer force - but that is causing issues as well.

I suspect that the continued presence of Polish troops in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Palestine and soon to Africa is also a strike against going into the military - as if you join you will go at some point to one of those places!

The British Army is better equipped, offers state of the art training in emerging fields (Like communications, computers, ect...) and better pay and retirement benefits. So it is attractive and a way to get access to Euros or the pound.

[freetobe]

Holly,
Thanks for your insightful view of Polish vs. British Military service. Makes sense to me. The missile site in exchange for upgrading the military seems fair to Poland but I'm not convinced that it is fair to the American people at the present time. Our country is currently "ruled" by the war and defense administration of "W" Government. Look at where their policies have taken us. And look at where Polish nationalism, intelligensia and the leadership of the RC religion has taken them. I am not pointing fingers or indulging in the blame game as far as Poland is concerned. I am not a native Pole, therefore I do not have the emotional ties that you and other natives do.
I will confine my negative observations to my birth country where I have emotional ties that influence my opinions,