SIXTEEN-year-old Shazad Akram is on parade - as one of the Army's latest recruits in East Lancashire.

But, more than that, he is held up as an example that there is real opportunity for Asians in the British Army.

The Blackburn teenager is backed up in that belief by his family who went along to the town's recruiting office to see him sign on - and be welcomed by a fellow Asian, Sergeant Shamim Ahmed, whose stripes and 16-year career in the forces testify that the Army welcomes people from the ethnic minorities in its ranks.

Yet, that notion received a severe setback recently when three East Lancashire Asian recruits to the Scots Guards quit, claiming they had suffered racial abuse from instructors during basic training - a matter the Army is investigating. It is young Shazad's response to that which we find encouraging. "If you get on with other people, you'll be all right," he said.

And isn't that the right attitude?

For, to be sure, this youngster, like all recruits to the Army, will not find it easy-going - and will learn that its training regime puts all newcomers, whatever their background, through the test of suffering personal abuse.

It is part of a system that has endured for generations - one designed to make men out of boys and to turn them into disciplined soldiers who can take whatever is hurled at them.

And we are sure that youngsters from the ethnic minorities, like Shazad, are as much up to that challenge as anyone else.

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