More Facebook Memes Completely Miss the Point.

If you are on Facebook you have probably seen the following statement doing the rounds as a "cut and paste" status comment.

"Two planes landed in England yesterday...One brought back a group of overpaid, underachieving footballers.The other brought back seven coffins, each with the Union Jack draped over them. Footballers play for our country, soldiers FIGHT for our country.Footballers give ninety minutes, soldiers give their lives....I know who I respect more. R.I.P. Our Boys. Copy & Paste this to your status, show your support!"

Strong stuff indeed. On the face of it, the sentiment of the message is not without foundation. Yeah footballers are (IMO) overpaid, and the England team did very poorly, considering all the dosh, high flying lifestyle and praise heaped on them. But this comparison doesn't make any sense. These are two separate groups of individuals. No member of the England team has compared the World Cup to fighting a war. These are two unrelated flights, the sentiment of the message is rather skewed. But I don't think that is the real root of the sentiment behind this message. I think it is down to something else.

The sight of England's ejection from the world cup, coincided with the bodies of seven British soldiers being flown to RAF Lyneham (four were killed in a Land Rover accident, unrelated to front line combat) a fact that cannot have missed most peoples attention. It can't have slipped peoples mind that on the greater scheme of things, the stakes on the outcome of a football game are pretty low. There are people out there who have (and have had) much more to lose, without a hundredth of the personal recognition. Something like this can bring home the true scale of what matters. Is it not too much of a stretch to say that this chain status note, is on some level an attempt by some to guiltily readdress their priorities (almost everyone who has posted it gave a blow by blow account of the match, their opinion on the ref ... etc.). I want to point out that this post is in no way a dig at the troops. From what little I know about serving soldiers, I think they find this "our boys" stuff; not their kind of thing. They do the best job under a bad situation. I just feel that some of the shouty sentiment (of course some is genuine feelings for the troops) has more to do with making the poster feel that they are demonstrating their support, without putting that support into more practice. There is much people can do. From donating to HfH, to raising money for those injured in war. Help the British Legion sell poppies and donate at remembrance day. That sort of thing is of more practical help than trying to look patriotic and good on Facebook.