Today's "What Gets My Goat" - NO POLITICS!

[YamFazFan]

<blockquote>Nemanja Matic has chosen not to wear a poppy because at the age of 12 he was bombed by NATO forces. He probably knows more about war than most.
</blockquote>Errr, isn't that pretty much what VNA was saying?. Or have I missed something?.

Umm no.  But that is a very valid point, an import point indeed.  My point is he is Serbian.  The Red Poppy Appeal represents 'our' war dead.

Yeah I missed something then :o

[nick crisp]

It still exists to this day - it's called Sandhurst ! No different to a Graduate Engineer who's thought process is "I can't do your job but my book says you're doing it wrong". Educated idiots the lot of them

You served under all of them?!

[Frosties]

Perfect time to take the piss - NOT!

[nick crisp]

Perfect time to generalise - NOT!

[Frosties]

Experience is not generalisation

[nick crisp]

So did you serve under all of them?

[Robbie8666]

So did you serve under all of them?

I have! I  served under officers straight out of BRNC Dartmouth that have joined a ship with NO experience and have tried telling Leading hands Petty Officers & Chiefs that they are doing something wrong! I found that a quiet word in there ears have directed them nicely!

& to add to the debate I wear my red poppy all year, but mine is for the lads (& Lasses) I have left behind during my 28 years & time since I left, not just during conflicts but at any of them that have died in Service!

Gone but not Forgotten!!

Mine is for me to remember don't care what anyone else does!  if an individual doesn't want to wear one that's their belief not mine!

[YamFazFan]

I haven't served in the armed forces so I can't comment from personal experience like those of you who have.


Is that like tongue in cheek army banter about all of the officers?.


We stood next to a group of ex-soldiers during the couple of hours wait for the service to begin at The Cenotaph last year and they were ribbing and bantering each other about regiments etc...


All good natured stuff.

[nick crisp]

Is that like tongue in cheek army banter about all of the officers?.

Other Ranks always take the piss out of officers. The joke was that to make an officer, you remove a person's brains. It seems some took it literally.
Of course some officers, especially junior officers, are incompetent. But take any group and that will be the case. And if you're just out of Sandhurst, of course you don't have experience. But some will then use the experience of their veteran NCOs until they gain the necessary experience to be the leaders of men. That, in my book, is how an officer can be good right from the start. We can't all be born a Caesar or an Alexander.

[Robbie8666]

But some will then use the experience of their veteran NCOs until they gain the necessary experience to be the leaders of men. That, in my book, is how an officer can be good right from the start. We can't all be born a Caesar or an Alexander.

totally agree if a baby officer has a good NCO for his first few postings then they will be moulded in the right way!

yes and banter in the armed forces is good,
it goes something like inter department rivally then inter ship then inter service then inter nation! but at he end of the day you stand next to the bloke you just been scrapping with and share a pint or 2 and ask how did that start lol!!

[YamFazFan]

It's interesting hearing about careers and lives that have probably been so different to mine.


I take it you served in the navy Robbie8666?.


What about you others?.

[nick crisp]

yes and banter in the armed forces is good,
it goes something like inter department rivally then inter ship then inter service then inter nation! but at he end of the day you stand next to the bloke you just been scrapping with and share a pint or 2 and ask how did that start lol!!

Oh, this is so true!
Ex-RAF here, Air Communications, and latterly Avionics Tech. We were called fairies by other trades! We were equally disdainful of sooties and riggers etc, although on helicopters, riggers were in the majority and so had an unfair advantage in numbers.
Whilst in Germany, I served on a Puma helicopter squadron on a base that also had a Chinook and two Harrier squadrons. The Harriers were 3, and 4(F) squadrons. "F" standing for "Fighter". We used to call ourselves 230(F) squadron in a piss take of that Harrier squadron. Some called us "half-past-two" squadron.
And the RAF looked upon squaddies as little more than walking sand bags, and the less said about the Navy the better!  :lol  I'm sure Robbie and others will tell you what they thought of us!  :eek
And there were always, of course, "those bloody Yanks". Couldn't help but be impressed by their sheer military might if you visited one of their bases though.
And the banter between Scots, Irish, Welsh, English and those who originated from other countries within our own services - well, even then it would have seemed extreme to outsiders*, but banter is all it was, and we all worked, played and drank together on good enough terms - most of the time!  :lol
So has it always been...


Otoh, just for balance, when in Germany one of my best mates was on 3 sqn (he had a GSXR1100, I had my FZR1000), and another one I used to drink with a bit was a squaddie based there - I had never met anyone else with such a wide knowledge of military history at the time!


*You know, thinking about it, I think that's one reason I like the biking world so much (generally speaking of course!). There is much of that same kind of banter. Maybe it has something to do with that thing about the black sense of humour which comes from being in a community who have a level of danger involved in what they do? I've never been a mountaineer/climber (perhaps in the next life), but I'll bet it's the same within their 'ranks'.

[YamFazFan]

public schoolboys blowing whistles so that poor devils could run at machine guns.

The officers certainly didn't escape the slaughter on the battlefield either.


17% of officers died compared with 12% of the regular soldiers.

[nick crisp]

[quote author=mtread link=topic=17546.msg286532#msg286532 date=1541454820]
public schoolboys blowing whistles so that poor devils could run at machine guns.

The officers certainly didn't escape the slaughter on the battlefield either.


17% of officers died compared with 12% of the regular soldiers.
[/quote]


And in some cases I think many of those public schoolboy officers formed a solid bond with their men, learned to understand where the ordinary working man came from, his hopes, his fears. Some went home and campaigned for their interests. Some wrote very eloquently in poetry and prose about the horrors they had seen, and the wrong of it all.

[YamFazFan]

....and over 200 Generals were either killed, captured or wounded. Apparently they visited the front line pretty much daily and were based significantly closer to it than nowadays when in battle.


Yes there was bad decisions made and some weren't up to the position, but the 'General Melchet' type character as portrayed in Blackadder Goes Forth is largely fiction.


Also a lot of people seem to think WW1 ended in a kind of stalemate. It didn't. It was a decisive victory for the allies .


Oh and yes I am looking these figures up. Thanks for the motivation mtread, I'm learning a lot of new stuff here.

[mtread]

It was a decisive victory for the allies .

Which led to over punitive reparations, which unfortunately led to you know what....

[ogri48]

it also led to the freedom of speech you are exercising here, along with the rest of us.

[YamFazFan]

It was a decisive victory for the allies .

Which led to over punitive reparations, which unfortunately led to you know what....

Not according to number 9 on this list by the telly historian Dan Snow they weren't. Apparently it was Hitler who made out they were over punitive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836

[VNA]

Also a lot of people seem to think WW1 ended in a kind of stalemate. It didn't. It was a decisive victory for the allies .

UK population estimated at 45.4 million. 
UK combat dead and missing in action ww1 – 744,000
UK total military deaths from all causes – 887,858
% population killed military and civilian – approx. 2%


Imagine that.


That’s just the UK.  Yup a decisive victory – what what – well worth the effort – what what – well done boys! – what what. 
I suppose at least by the 1900’s they’d stopped shipping the bodies home, grinding them up and spreading them on the fields as fertilizer. 

it also led to the freedom of speech you are exercising here, along with the rest of us.

That’s a thought eh?  Millions of men firing lumps of metal at each other, blowing each other up, cutting each other’s throats.  Millions of dead.  Men, indeed whom history shows, one Christmas put down their weapons down to play football, share cigarettes and have a drink together.  Men with more in common with each other than they ever had apart.  Why?  They were simply told to kill each other by their rich political masters – that was all.


As for freedom of speech and freedom of expression, well, the mob mentality of war still exists to this day, just ask Nemanja Matic. 

[mtread]

it also led to the freedom of speech you are exercising here, along with the rest of us.

Don't quite get why?

Not according to number 9 on this list by the telly historian Dan Snow they weren't. Apparently it was Hitler who made out they were over punitive.

Good point. Goes to show how easy it is to create populism out of perceived depravation, and scapegoat others.