Buy you a drink, soldier?

Shocking, yes shocking, news just in. According to research carried out by the Department of the Bleeding Obvious at the University of NoShitSherlock, soldiers who have served on the front line, who have seen action, are more likely to 'abuse alcohol' than those who have not.

The research, funded by the MoD - in other words, us - originally set out to discover whether the stress of combat is traumatising soldiers, sending them m-m-m-mad.

But no, it isn't - our troops are tougher than that. So the researchers had to find some other problem, some other hook for the next round of funding. So they turned to drink. Apparently, there has been..

".. an impact of nearly a decade of combat operations, and this was most notable with the misuse of alcohol .. Overall 13% of those surveyed reported regularly drinking alcohol to excess, with those regulars who had been deployed more than 20% more likely to have problems"

Well, who'd have fucking well thought? Isn't this astonishing news?

Could it be that driving through a war zone, in a jeep made of used KitKat wrappers and Lego, is slightly more stressful than putting together a well-funded research paper with a foregone conclusion?

Is it possible that being on the front line, seeing your friends and colleagues injured, even killed, is a bit tougher then being a reporter, writing yet another space-filler about the demon alcohol to a deadline?

Might it be that if your workplace is filled with bearded lunatics who want you dead, rather than fat Dave, spotty Kev and Noreen from accounts, you'll could be expected to be little tense, in need of a relaxing outlet?

For fuck's sake.

And what's the definition of 'to excess' anyway? How do you 'abuse' alcohol? Given the way in which the Righteous have demonised and denormalised the eevil alcohol, the allowable amount has been pushed so low that we all fucking well drink to excess, stressed or no. As soon as you raise your second pint to your lips, you've broken through the barriers.

Soldier, if you've fought for this country, if you've risked your life on our behalf, then you fucking well deserve a drink.

In fact, the next one's on us. What'll you have?


++UPDATE++ Commenter JLEE points out that, in the good ol' US of A, you can actually buy a returning soldier a beer, on the website www.beerforsoldiers.org What a difference, eh? The Americans buy their guys a beer, we bleat about our soldiers 'abusing alcohol'.