In 1999 I was a few days away from signing on the line and joining the British army. I'd fucked up every exam at school and failed at my retakes. My old man told me that the army was my only option. Being a stubborn git I told him, fine I'll go. In the end we both backed down.

So I escaped being sent off to get my brains blown out for Britain and the USA. Ironically I would have been sent to either Afghanistan or Iraq. Both countries my Great Uncle and Great Grandfather had served in during WW2 and before.

All that generation of my family on my Mothers side all served either in the Army or Air Force. My Grandfather was captured at Singapore. My Great Grandfather served in both having lied about his age to get into WW1 as a 14 year old.

My Great Uncle was a commando in the jungle war against the Japanese. He never got over what he saw and did. Never held a job down where he had to deal with people. He ended as a caretaker in a block of flats for 30 years. A job where he didn't have to talk to people.

The joke of it all was that they were all Irish. But my Great Grandfather was a young lad with nothing to his name and no parents so I guess the army seemed like a chance to get out of Liverpool.

When my Grandfather got out of the Japanese POW camp he was barely 4 stone. Unsurprisingly, he never talked about. Wanted to just move the hell on. He was literally around the corner from Nagasaki when they dropped the bomb. He was saved due to the wind direction.

The last time I saw my Great Uncle he told me a story of how in 1939 he was sent to deliver a shit load of weapons to the tribes in the North West Frontier Province as a bribe to keep them onside. As his unit returned down the track the tribesmen started firing at them.

When he told me about this he laughed and said "don't know why we're back there. We'll never win."