On the day Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, I was sitting at my computer in a journalism lecture in Nottingham, struggling to concentrate on anything else while coming to terms with its significance. In 2025, the fire and blood has been integrated into the background of most Brits’ lives, hardly registering as they go about their daily existence. The shock of a large, sovereign democracy being invaded by its larger neighbour, total war in Europe, has largely worn off.

Even more faded in the popular memory is the Second World War, those having experienced it were very young at the time. The death of John Hemingway, widely thought to have been the last living pilot to have fought during the Battle of Britain in 1940, felt like a watershed moment as the conflict’s centenary comes into view over the horizon. The few, which included brave men from overseas as well as the UK, saved our islands from more or less certain occupation by an evil regime.

We are not facing the same imminent danger now, and we may never do so again. But have no illusions, some nations mean us and our values harm, and events could present a need to defend ourselves abroad.

Indeed, the Prime Minister is prepared to put British troops in harm’s way in Ukraine if a peace deal were somehow reached.

Elsewhere, in his new year speech, Putin’s ally Xi Jinping said he is aiming to reunite China and Taiwan, and proclaimed “no one can stop” this.

The West and its foes are greeting each other by shaking one hand while duelling with sabres using the other. It is as if a massive line of dominoes is being arranged, and a collapse could be triggered by a single push.

In the event of a world war being officially declared, I would sign up. I won’t pretend that this would solely be down to a rush of patriotic duty, although that would of course play a part.

It is truly sad that some of my contemporaries, Generation Z, feel that the country has not done anything for them, and they therefore cannot fathom volunteering for its service, as I was told earlier this week.

Lots of people my age also disagree with Britain’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war, for example, and are not proud of all of this country’s historic doings.

But, in my view, this way of looking at things is a tad too selective and narrow.

Young people in the UK are indeed facing huge problems, but they also get to enjoy all that being a citizen of this great country brings with it.

This is worth protecting, and it is morally wrong to leave that entirely to others if you are able to lend a hand. It is made even more imperitive since the British Army is on course to be the smallest it has been since the Napoleonic Wars.

I would feel the pull of shame to the forces if I stayed behind at home while others my age, as well as people younger and older, laid down their lives to protect us.

This is not a new feeling. You may be familiar with a First World War recruitment poster from 1915, before conscription was activated, featuring a chap sitting in a chair at home, after hostilities had come to an end, with a little girl on his knee.

She asks: “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?”