Brits aren’t interested in conscription – but something must be done

My grandfather didn’t agonise over the decision. When war came in 1939, he simply went. He became a tank driver, helped turn back Rommel at El Alamein and fought the Nazis through Sicily and Italy before pushing into the horrors of the German heartland itself. After the war, like so many of his brave generation, he completed his national service before being demobbed – never questioning the extraordinary sacrifice being asked of him, or pausing to consider what lay on the other side. That generation did not consult a poll. They did not weigh up the inconvenience. They simply went….