Best Army in the World - Not any More!

"OK! Can we all stand at 'Attention' please" - shuffle shuffle. - "No Mr Taylor, like this, heels together.....Mr Williams, please don't stamp your feet when you come to'Attention" you might hurt yourself. We don't do that anymore!". 

This is what you may well hear on parade grounds of the future British Army as recruits are taught to be soldiers. No longer will Sergeant Majors and Drill Instructors be allowed to bawl out recruits, they must now use a "gentler" approach. On orders from the Army Leadership, it's 'softly, softly' all the way. Instead of shouting orders at recruits and putting the fear of God into them, instructors must now "discuss tasks with recruits rather than bawling orders at them." A batch of 4,500 new military instructors are now being encouraged to "be progressive" at the Army Recruiting and Training Division's Staff Leadership School (ASLS) in Purbright Surrey, meaning they should now "motivate, encourage and enthuse new recruits."

Lt. Col. Matt Fensom, Commanding Officer of the school is quoted as saying, "There were limitations to traditional training techniques" in that "soldiers would not know what to do if the person giving the orders were not present (never seemed to be a problem in the past). "We don't want soldiers to be robots.....we need them to think for themselves." Young soldiers need to be "coaxed, reasoned with, and encouraged to think for themselves." Codswollop! I have never heard such a load of 'limp-wristed' garbage in all my life.

This 'about face' by the British Army is the result of an investigation into bullying within the ranks in recent times, which caused a furore in the Press in the last couple of years. The Army commissioned research into psychological  techniques to identify traits that would hold back recruits. This new policy is the result.

Never in all my years have I heard so much bulls**t! The old methods have served the British Armed Forces for hundreds of years and made it feared across the world, but now we come across a generation that is too fragile to handle it?

Sergeant Major: "OOH! I'm soooo sorry for shouting at you dear chap. You won't tell your Mummy and Daddy will you, because it will be in the papers tomorrow if you do! Please sit there and rest while I go and get you a nice hot cup of tea. Two sugars is it?"

As one veteran has said, this new policy will lead to a total breakdown in discipline. Hard discipline is necessary if you are going to order a soldier to put himself in harm's way, you don't spend a half-hour persuading him that it's the right thing to do! It must be instinctive to follow orders.

Today, an oft raised topic is soldiers returning from the front line suffering stress and Post-Traumatic Shock (PTS), and their first port of call on arriving home is a visit to the 'Head Shrink'. My Mother, who is nearly ninety and lived through WW2 always laughs with derision when she hears stories of our PTS'd soldiers of today. "My generation went through a world war, and when it was over we shouldered the load and  got on with life. The youngsters of today have no backbone at all, they've all gone soft." And I must say I agree with her.

When the newspaper reports started coming out a year or two ago about young recruits complaining because their drill instructors were shouting at them I cringed. What did these namby-pamby faggots expect, that the Sergeant Major would wake them with a cup of tea and a bun and politely ask them if they felt like going on parade? Worse were the parents who started flocking to the newspapers with complaints of brutality against their dear little boys! It put the Army in a bad light, with the subsequent affect on recruiting figures. All because some nasty Sergeant Major shouted at their precious little flower!

I served for twelve years in the RAF and suffered far worse than some of these idiots today, especially during my basic training. I remember well the Corporal drill instructors thundering into the billet for inspection, screaming their heads off. We had all laid out our kit and bedding in the prescribed manner, but it was not good enough. They marched up the long room tipping over each bed as they passed it. They were however generous in giving us ten whole minutes to right our beds, sort our stuff out, and get ready for another inspection. One recruit made a minor mistake so the drill instructor manhandled him into his own locker and locked the door. He came back after ten minutes and let him out. Needless to say, after such treatment, apart from minor infractions we passed all future inspections.

It may sound brutal to many modern ears but it was necessary, for the prime directive for any military man, be he soldier, sailor or airman is to obey orders without question. That is the only way for a military force to function, and you can only achieve this through iron discipline which is taught  by our bawling Sergeant Majors and Drill Instructors.

With the introduction of these new methods however, I feel we have started down the slippery slope towards having a military as useless as the Dutch. Who can forget Dutch complicity in the rounding up and slaughter of 30,000 refugees in Srebrenica  during the Bosnian war! What about complaints by a previous NATO Commander some years ago during a Navy exercise in the Atlantic who is quoted  as saying, "The Dutch, I wish they were on the other side. They are useless." Imagine an Armed Forces that has a Trade Union! Officer: "Right gentlemen, we are going war. " Union Representative: "What do you mean, we're going to war? The Union has not been informed of this. I am afraid I will have to consult with my members!"

This is probably the reason why the Dutch Government agreed to send it's Armed Forces into Afghanistan, only so long as they were in an area as far away as possible from where they could be shot at. Is Britain now heading the same way? I hope not!

Times have changed, and the people with it, but I cannot but help feel we are going to hell in a basket.

My old Flight Sergeant Instructor will be tossing in his grave!

Roy.