Lt-Gen's unease at 'mawkish'

THE British public are treating military personnel with unwanted "Diana and Graceland-style" mawkish respect, a former commander of the British forces in Iraq claims.

Speaking in the lead up to Remembrance Sunday today, Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Fry said he felt uneasy at how the public were behaving and said the armed forces were currently held in a state of excessive reverence.

"It is a greater infatuation than at any other stage of recent military history that I can recall," said Lt-Gen Fry. "There is some of this that is good and laudable and there is some that is pretty mawkish. It is a question of trying to celebrate what is good and trying to avoid the Diana, Graceland stuff."

Lt-Gen Fry's comments follow concerns expressed by veterans who criticised the Poppy Appealfor being overtaken by "celebrity hype" and turned into a "month-long drum roll of support for current wars".

Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, voicing his support for Lt-Gen Fry, said: "We have moved into an age of recreational grief in our society and the armed forces are the recipient of it in the most direct form."

"The Wootton Bassett phenomenon, as has developed, is very affecting and well meant but not altogether helpful to the forces."

However, Andrew Burgin, spokesman for Military Families Against the War, said: "People in this country are more at ease in expressing their feelings than they were years ago. They are continually saying they support the soldiers and not the war. If this makes General Fry uneasy then that speaks volumes about government policy."