Either we must continue to work for these qualifications, knowing that they will be rubbished or, like Hensher, pretend we never were anything more than an insouciant Proust-reading fop.JENNY BOOTH SheffieldSir: As an 18-year-old A-level student, I find talk of A-levels becoming too easy is ridiculous. This may involve going to war when all other options are exhausted.Tony Heath is right to draw attention to the reluctance of most previous prime ministers to take the country to war. Anthony Eden was the notable exception.ALAN TERRY Chipping Sodbury, GloucestershireSir: Of course anyone who signs up for the army does so voluntarily with awareness of the risks. They will defend their country against attack with pride and die with honour.However, if they realise their government has misled them into war, they and their families have every right to be angry This is their life, their most precious asset.

They agreed to risk it with courage so they may defend their people. People voluntarily entering the military rescind that luxury of opinion (an army based on conscription is an entirely different situation). Families of such men and women, while they should retain their voice of protest also have to respect that the choice to enter the armed services was made freely, and carries with it a duty and sometimes tragedy.We can argue for ever about the merits or not of entering Iraq, but we are now there, however stupidly, and extricating ourselves from an explosive situation is an extremely complex problem. I do not think that young teenagers and newly grief-stricken parents are the most appropriate people to offer objective commentary for headline coverage.MARLENE GRAY Hetton-le-Hill, Co DurhamSir: I disagree with Sian Heath's statement that the primary function of a soldier is to go to war; it more accurately describes the role of a mercenary. But a reminder is needed that people who choose to enter the armed services have to accept that they will at some point be sent to regions of conflict to fight. With that career choice comes mortal risk.Wars are, by definition, unjust and senseless, but which ones are worthwhile fighting in largely depends on viewpoint. The primary role of HM armed forces is to defend this country, its peoples and its critical interests.

Nowhere in these adverts is the "primary function" of a soldier depicted.It is other people's children - the likes of Gordon Gentle and the ten thousand innocent Iraqi human beings - who pay the blood-price for Tony Blair's wretched, criminal war.ANDY HARVEY GlasgowSir: As a parent, I can only imagine the pain that the Gentle family and others like them must be feeling at the death of their soldier sons in Iraq. This stone-hearted thinking reveals lack of understanding.Gordon Gentle was signed up as he went to sign on, an economic conscript from the most socially and economically devastated area of Glasgow.At the moment, pub toilets everywhere are pasted with recruitment ads for the military. Nakedly macho in their appeal, they promise good pay, the chance to learn a trade and opportunities for world travel - in short, opportunities ordinarily denied to many young working-class people. The new regime of one delivery plus the odd haphazard drive-by condemns staff and customer alike to faceless anonymity.A Government which has a lot to say about the social behaviour of others yet remains determined to make the Royal Mail profitable should take note.SUSAN ROBINSON London W1 Other people's children go to war Sir: Sian Heath can't understand why families blame Tony Blair for the deaths of their children who have chosen to join the army, because "the primary function of a soldier is to go to war" (letter, 21 August). The recently discarded first post played a similar role at the heart of urban village life.Delivering at an hour before most people left for work, our postmen and women knew us and had faces to go with addresses.

My business spends over £1,000 per year mailing packages out through our local post office, and payment for these comes back to me as cheques through the post. In five years nothing sufficiently important to notice has gone astray, and on the one occasion that a package was damaged, I received full compensation in a week.If she wants to save post offices, why doesn't she lay into the courier firms whose inferior service is undermining them? Their drivers regularly get lost, mislay packages with far greater frequency than the post, and when they can't deliver, leave the consignment at a depot miles away, which I can only locate by going through a tedious voicemail procedure - whereas my post office is just a mile down the road. On top of that their innumerable vans fly hither and thither around the countryside, half-empty and without any collective strategy, wasting petrol and adding to congestion.We have learnt from the days when moaning about British Rail was a sport, that rubbishing national service providers is music to the ears of the advocates of privatisation who would love to give us something even worse.SIMON FAIRLIE South Petherton, SomersetSir: Janet Street-Porter rightly champions the role of rural post offices at the heart of village life. How many female relations, insensate in misery, would ever believe that the cause which claimed their son or brother could justify their grief?So the rest of us must have the fortitude to refuse the wailing women the last word. Gordon Gentle chose to serve his country and to wear his Queen's uniform In so doing, he kissed the sword He embraced a noble vocation. If we salute his bravery, which we should, we must also honour his sacrifice, and on his terms He chose his calling. It is not for us and not even for his family to belittle and patronise and devalue that choice.Private Gentle has gone over the hill to glory.