Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Aug 19, 2004
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Bad Lads
I have been watching this TV programme on and off for a few weeks now and it's been well discussed with all my mates that I know on another web site that I use1. Of course there were all the usual comments made by them all about the modern youth of today not being able to hack life in the army.
Just a note for all of you who do not know about this programme. What it is, really, is a fly on the wall series about a group of youngsters who have been in trouble with the law. Some of them are car thieves, house breakers, drug dealers and thugs and they have all been asked to do a four week basic training course in the style of the fifties when our country had conscription.
When the programme first came on all my mates on that other site were watching it, but they soon got fed up with it and left it alone. I just felt I had to keep a track of it, not to find out more about the training as much as I wanted to see if some of them could actually complete it.
The reason, I suppose, was that it reminded me so much of my training when I first joined the Navy. Back in those days the training was very much like it was in the fifties and I could relate to it more. It was a case that they were going to make you or break you and all you had to do was keep your head down, grit your teeth and just get through it as best you could.
One factor which I noticed on the programme that I could remember well was the fact that you soon started to mould into a team and, if you were not part of that team, you were nothing!
Any aggression that you showed against your instructors was really wasted and would be better spent on your efforts to get through it. Another fact was that your attitude towards the ones who were struggling soon changed from hating them to actually trying to help them. I suppose this was part of the bonding that they were hammering into us every day.
For example, we had one bloke who always failed the liberty boat inspection at the main gate before we could go ashore2. So, after a while, instead of picking on him for our loss we actually started to help him into his uniform after showing him how to iron it and so on. Then, before we arrived at the gate for the liberty boat, we would inspect ourselves first the result being that this bloke learnt more about his grooming and we passed the inspection and actually got ashore.
Discipline was strict, and you soon learnt that you could not buck the system as the system always won and any attempts to beat it were well wasted at your and everyone elses expense. For example one of our lads got a bit out of hand and the result was that the whole class, all thirty of us, were soon doubling around the parade ground with our rifles above our heads in full kit at two in the morning. The worst thing of all was that it was pouring with rain and we were all due for early inspection of the kit we were actually wearing. That was just another test of teamwork and the irons were all going non-stop through the rest of that night and the radiator was covered with steaming uniforms - so much, in fact, that all our hut windows steamed up on the inside and then froze as the early morning frost came down. As it worked out, we all passed the early morning inspection but our hut was failed for having -dirty windows! It seems that nothing has changed, only the lessons learnt.
I do not believe that everyone is suited for military service, but I cannot help but think that it would not hurt to try. I learnt many lessons during my time in the Navy, some good and of course some not so good. Just like life itself, we all find that we have to come against outstanding odds and problems. It's the way we tackle them that makes the difference.
I have had to come to terms with certain facts in my life that I do not particularly like, one of which is that I am not as mobile as I would like to be. Every time I find myself struggling, I think back to that poor bloke who could never pass inspection and all the help and determination we put into helping him. That seems to give me the courage to try again and, if that's the result of such earlier training way back in my life, well I for one am glad I did it!
I only hope that some of these lads that are going through that just now will find some comfort in the fact that it will do them good at some time during the rest of their lives.
