We're left with scum while good men perish

I WATCHED two video clips this week.

One was of a soldier in Afghanistan whose legs had just been blown off, lying bleeding to death and blinded in a muddy canal.

It was a shocking, graphic image of terror and desperation that no Hollywood war epic could depict.

Because the lad in this movie, struggling to breathe as army medics tried to save him, was real.

The other clip I saw was of baseball bat-wielding lowlifes in a street in Glasgow's Govan, fighting over turf.

To call them men would be a gross exaggeration of what they really are.

They are the kind of scum-of-the-earth you see on any given night in housing schemes across the country.

Their gangs will have names that mark them out to the enemy they square up to, once they're tanked up enough on drink or drugs to do battle.

They pose on the internet, waving swords and knives, and bragging about recent bloody battles and scalps they've won.

But they're always home in time for supper. And if they do get caught by cops and end up in court, their badge of honour will be a few months in a cushy jail, then it's back to the streets.

There's no courage involved for cowards like the thicko, gutless tossers in Govan, jailed this week after being captured on CCTV in a gang fight.

The sheriff who jailed them described the Govan Six, seen in a frenzy of violence with knives and baseball bats, as "utterly disgraceful".

They are worse than that. If pond life like Thomas Jones, Robert Morrison, Thomas Glancy, Alan McFadyen, James McGartland and James Connell had any balls, they would be fighting real battles.

If they had backbone, they'd know what it is to be part of a real band of brothers.

Some of these wastes of space are around the same age as the two soldiers I watched on the harrowing BBC documentary, Wounded, which followed the lives of horrifically injured soldiers after their return from Afghanistan.

It was hard enough to watch, so we can only imagine what it was like for 24- year-old paratrooper Lance Corporal Tom Neathway, who lost both legs and an arm in a roadside bomb.

"I was about 6ft tall and weighed around 11 stone. Now I'm 4ft tall and weigh around eight stone," he said, deadpan, as he pushed himself on, determined that he'd walk with his new legs at his regiment's medal ceremony.

He did. And it brought tears to my eyes as he stuck out his chest and walked slowly across the parade ground. His comrade, Andy Allen just 19, of the Irish Regiment, struggled after losing both legs as well as his eyesight.

You couldn't help but weep with him, lying in bed, raw stumps where his legs should be, as he prayed that his sight would recover enough to see his newborn baby. And it did.

But none of these Boys' Own stories will ever have a happy ending. It's graphic documentaries like this, and pictures every day of another fallen soldier, that makes the gang culture in our midst so infuriating. If only our laws could force the thugs who want to fight into a REAL battle.

But we all know these spineless yobs wouldn't have the stomach for that.

If only we could send these so-called tough guys into a proper war, we'd soon see who the big men were.

Because with every day that passes in this bloody war, we are truly running out of good men.

Real men like Sergeant Mike Lockett 29, of Monifieth, Angus, who was killed on Monday just 15 months after the Queen awarded him the Military Cross for bravery in battle.

Men who are the lifeblood of future generations, who would lay down their lives for each other and for their country.

Sadly we are left with scum like the Govan Six, who will breed more scum while good men perish.

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