Can anyone tell me why this is a headline? Someone? Anyone? Because frankly, I'm baffled. Utterly and complete baffled. Where is the surprise in being told that a member of the armed forces has been killed whilst serving in Iraq?

Why is this a headline I keep seeing on the front pages of certain tabloid newspapers, complete with pictures of the bereaved family posed heavily on front doorsteps or by garden walls with their arms round one another, looking mournful? Why do I keep hearing about how these bereaved relatives have 'slammed Blair' for 'his part' in the death of their loved one? It's sad that these people have lost a relative, yes. But one thing it's not is headline news. This is their personal tragedy and I wouldn't deny them the right to grieve for a moment, but it should not be national news that a soldier has been killed whilst stationed in the middle of a war zone.

Because, strangely enough, soldiers do have a tendency to die during wartime.

That's what they're trained for. That's what they're there for, isn't it? To kill, and in some cases to be killed. The fact that one of them, or a few of them, have been killed whilst out on the front line is a non-story. It should not be a surprise.

Maybe it is a surprise to some people because for some reason a section the British public seems to have forgotten what it actually means to join the Army, Navy or Air Force. That what it means is going to war. Putting oneself in danger. Getting shot for Queen and Country. This is why a lot of people don't actually want to join the army. I don't want to. What the Hell has the Queen ever done for me? Why should I go out and get myself shot for her sake? Would she get shot for me? No. Therefore, why join the army? That's why people don't want to join. They don't particularly want to end up in a position where they might get shot in the name of some corgi-loving old multi-squillionaress who lives in a big house with her dysfunctional family.

Maybe it's not surprising when you see the adverts the army and navy churn out. 'Be The Best'. 'The Team Works'. They make the whole process of going to war seem like some slam-bang boys' own adventure (though, these days, they admit to the existence of females in the armed services and so the adverts contain the occasional severely sexy female), complete with REAL guns, REAL tanks and REAL excitement! It's like a cold-war thriller! It's like being GI Joe or the hero of your own personal first-person shooter, it's like every adventure holiday you've ever been on, for the rest of your life! It's fun! It's wild!

Join the Army, the message runs, and be the envy of your friends. Go to strange new lands, meet strange new people, have amazing experiences! What they conveniently forget to mention is that what most squaddies see of the strange new lands will consist of a few bullet-riddled walls, the strange new people will be trying to kill them, and the amazing experiences will consist of crouching in foxholes getting shot at and shelled. They don't mention that, in actuality, there's no 'save' facility. If you die in the Science Complex, you can't restart from the last autosave and try it all over again. You just die.

And this is why most people do not want to join the armed forces.

The real surprise about the 'Coalition of the Willing' and their campaign in Iraq is not how many soldiers have been killed - it's how few. Compare the casualties sustained by the members of said Coalition with the losses of the Iraqi military (notice how we don't hear about them, or not outside the occasional broadsheet article full fo Difficult Long Words, anyway? Notice how we don't care when the BBC shows us pictures of dead Iraqui soldiers, but if they dare do the same with a British corpse, the newspapers are up in arms? What's the message here - that one British life is worth ten or twenty Iraqis? That dead Iraqis don't count?) and they've been paltry. They've been paltry compared to the number of Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives since the war began. Barely worth mentioning, in fact. It's no shock to hear that a few British soldiers have been killed.

Would it be so difficult for us to get a sense of proportion about this? Sometimes soldiers do die during wartime. It's just the way it goes. And - though I hate to say it - that is what they signed on for. Maybe Army recruitment adverts should carry warnings, like MacDonald's coffee. If coffee has to carry disclaimers saying 'Caution: Coffee May be Hot' maybe adverts for the armed forces ought to do the same? 'Caution: Soldiers May be Killed' might not be a winning slogan, but at least it might introduce an element of reality that seems to be sadly lacking in a lot of recruitment advertisements, and subsequently in public consciousness.

Yes, I support our troops - I didn't want them to go out there, but now they are out there I hope as many of them come back alive as possible. I hope they don't live to regret listening to the gung-ho messages of recruiters designed to seduce them into getting shot for Queen and Country. Yes, I feel sorry for the families of the soldiers who have died, but it's an abstract emotion. What I don't agree with is all the fuss and furore made by these papers (many of whom if memory serves supported our Prime Minister's 'hard-line' stance - perhaps because they yearned for the good old 1940s when men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centuri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centuri - and supported the war when it still might have been possible to avoid it) now that they've realized that being at war isn't all that great after all.

Paging tabloid newspapers. Reality on Line Three. Please answer the Clue Phone.