Even the suggestion that soldiers accused of abuses might be brought to book would begin to erode the army's sense of impunity.
Any pride in what he's been doing in the army, any sense of nationhood, is gone; "sanctioned brutality" is all it has been.
He has no trouble finding work as a roofer, but still misses the camaraderie of the army, the sense of purpose and order in his life.
His salvoes against creeping Islamisation are often accompanied by veiled claims that the EU is trying to dismember Turkey by supporting Kurds and other minorities.The army's sense of vulnerability has been heightened by a deepening rift with America over Iraq.
But when sectarian violence is the byproduct of the first blush of freedom, as it so often is, the army's sense of guardianship over the integrity the state, including the need to guard its own economic interests, eclipses any respect for civilian primacy.
Only 10 weeks after General Musharraf pledged his "full support" to the United States, enraging Islamic militants in Pakistan and Islamic hard-liners in the army, the sense that the United States has failed to keep its side of the deal is rife, from the bazaars of cities to the offices where senior aides to General Musharraf ponder how to extricate Pakistan from the problems the war has caused.
Fortunately, we all are blessed with an army of sense-makers who hold forth from editorial pages, self-help best sellers, the nightly news and pulpits.
I liked the idea of a relative sleeping giant, I knew that they'd have a big fanbase from their league years, and that the town's army-bred sense of loyalty and lack of real rivals would mean that Aldershot probably weren't a club whose fanbase had been sucked into the vacuum of one of the imperial Premier League super teams. .
The army reinforced his sense of discipline and self-confidence.
That America's actions (as opposed to precautions) after 9/11 almost all took place far from home, with a professional army, strengthened this sense of abstraction.
