As a kid, I always wanted to be a pilot in the British airforce. I'd grown up on games like F19 Stealth Fighter, and I thought it would be the coolest thing in

As a kid, I always wanted to be a pilot in the British airforce. I'd grown up on games like F19 Stealth Fighter, and I thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to fly planes like that and drop bombs on the bad guys. I think it was during the gulf war in 1991, when I a TV news piece, shot by a war journalist. He was filming from inside a helicopter, and there was a US gunner using a fixed gun (50-cal?), gunning down enemy forces, shooting them in the back as they ran away. I was horrified - this was not what I thought war was. My silly ideals of valour and honour, were not real. As I grew older I saw and came to learn of yet more horrors - US and British bombs dropped on schools and residential blocks. Children blown to pieces. The US and UK selling arms to anyone with the money. And going back further, the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs during the Vietnam war. One of the worst aspects, was how the military often seemed to try to bury their mistakes. When they didn't, all we got was platitudes until they did it again. Perhaps the worst of all, was seeing how everyone else seemed to maintain the "them and us" stance - we were the good guys, and all those brown people were the bad guys. Very few cared one iota if a bomb was dropped on a school in the Middle East or Pakistan. I was disgusted by the apathy around me. And so, my dream became a nightmare, and I, thankfully, took a different path. I largely have journalism and truth seekers to thank for that.