Hi, I haven’t posted for a while, life is hectic at the best of times, depressing at the worst, and the whole Brexit mess is enough to make any sane person living in France a little cuckoo.
This squadie thing caught my attention though, my father was 2 Para, my ex husband was also 2 Para and I worked as a civi for the PT corps teaching (amongst other things) swimming to squadies. Now this was back in the 80s before the “soft” approach to army training took over, I remember my ex going through beastings during his basic training and how physically, and mentally brutal training was. As prospective Paras who would be the best the British army could produce (second to 22 regiment, obviously) they were trained to take whatever the worst of the world could give, this included physical and mental torture techniques, training was extreme and hard for a good reason! It also taught these soldiers respect, real respect for others and senior ranks whether you liked them or not (more often it was not).
I clearly remember years ago an article in a tabloid about a young Para recruit who couldn’t cope with the beastings and his mother complained to his CO and obviously went to the newspapers, there was outcry that our lovely future soldiers could be bullied like this and beastings as they were became a thing of the past, as did tough soldiers and respect.
Training then and earlier was extreme but it meant they could cope with what was to come in places like Ireland, the Falklands, and onwards to Iraq etc.
Their behaviour off the parade ground could be equally extreme and shooting at a photo of someone would have been just a giggle, but they knew that had they been caught doing so they would have been locked up for a few days and accepted it, ditto for fighting in the pub or any number of things they might have done.
I’m waffling (sorry), but the fact remains that soldiers these days aren’t respectful at all, they’re taught their lives through that they have a right to this, that or the other and that they are entitled to their views and opinions; as soldiers they sign on the dotted line to give up their own opinions/views etc. and become an employee who is willing to give their life for their country, that is what they sign up for.
They also sign up on the understanding that the country who asks them to do abhorrent things in its name will protect them and not suddenly, decades down the line turn around and string them up in court for complying with orders that were given at a time of what was effectively a war, just because views today are different and even fighting for some countries has become “soft”.
Don’t misunderstand me, I hate war, I hate fighting, and I even hate arguments but this world is full of some really nasty people and if we insist on having armies and sending soldiers to fight then they should be trained/equipped accordingly, they should understand the atrocities of torture and be equipped to deal with it, they should be taught to respect others; civilians in other places are not the enemy unless they are actively taking part, if they are then they afford the same rules as other enemies.
We can’t expect soldiers to be what we want them to be if we don’t train them properly to be that way, taking the softly, softly, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings or take away your rights” approach to training does not produce the soldiers everyone seems to expect (a dish is only salty if you add salt).
It also produces soldiers who are stupid enough to post videos of themselves doing stupid things on social media!
Right, I’m going to see if the rain has stopped so the normal chaos here can continue 
and I (the newcomer) wanted to fit in… 
