Read Hateland for Free Online Page B

hearing, the magistrate looked at my army papers suspiciously. I said I'd always wanted to become a soldier. He said, 'You might just be saying that.'
        He told me he intended giving me a total of six months' imprisonment, but was prepared to defer sentencing for a little while. If I wasn't in the army on the day he set aside, then I'd be sent to jail. However, if I was a soldier by that date, he'd suspend the sentence for two years.
        The army seemed the least unsatisfactory alternative, although my friends laughed hysterically at the idea of me as a soldier. They didn't think I'd last five minutes in an environment where I had to take orders. The British Army was the first extreme right-wing organisation I ever joined. Patriotism, or rather a narrow, arrogant, Rule-Britannia, God-save-the-Queen jingoism, was rammed down our throats at every opportunity. And, like the other far-right groups I later encountered, the forces of the Crown didn't seem to care too much about the presence of criminals in the ranks.
        I'd already told the recruitment sergeant I had no criminal record, so at first I feared the promised stringent background checks would unmask me. I needn't have worried. During my three years in the army, I came across many people - at least 20 - with undisclosed criminal records, often involving crimes of violence. And twice during my service, the army sent an officer to speak up for me when I appeared in court for new offences.
        The initial selection process took place at St George's Barracks in Sutton Coldfield. I didn't have much time for most of the other recruits. Many of them seemed desperately keen to make the army their life. For the first time I came across the term 'army barmy', used to describe people who adore everything to do with soldiering.
        I got on well with only one recruit. Called Alan, he came from Rhodesia. He was bright and amusing and had done some strange things in his life. He hated blacks, especially black Rhodesians, and followed intently the progress of the war in his homeland between the whites and the black 'commie bastard terrorists', as he called them. He couldn't understand why white people in England seemed to treat blacks - he called them 'kaffirs' - as equals. I told him we didn't.
        He said that when he'd first arrived in England he'd taken the underground from Heathrow Airport into central London. Further down the line, a black man had got on and sat in the same carriage. Alan couldn't believe the man's cheek. He thought blacks were forbidden to travel in the same compartments as whites - as was the case in his own country. He told the man to get out. Not surprisingly, he refused. So Alan pulled the communication cord. When the guard arrived, Alan told him to remove 'the kaffir' immediately. The guard threatened to call the police.
        Alan's father was Scottish, so he had no problem being accepted into the British Army. He intended getting an up-to-date military training before returning home to bayonet some commie kaffirs.
        At that time, I hadn't grasped the meaning of regiments. I just thought we were all in the army and that was that. Alan explained the regimental system and told me he wanted to join his father's Scottish regiment. He wanted me to go with him, but I said, 'I ain't going in no fucking jock regiment.'
        So he suggested - because of my Irish background - that I join an Irish one. He added, 'Then you can be a war-dodger as well.' I didn't know what he meant. He explained that the army had a policy of not sending so-called 'Irish' regiments to serve in Northern Ireland.
        My mind had been so focused on avoiding prison that until that point I hadn't properly considered the most unpleasant implication of joining the army, namely, that I might have to serve in the British-occupied section of Ulster. War-dodging struck me as an excellent idea.
        The results of my aptitude tests had indicated