To the great consternation of army officers, when seeking a post-service career, it is always their N.C.O's who are sought out by civilian recruitment firms.
For it is the N.C.O's who know how to run things. Officers spend their career passing on other people's orders, making a few inconsequent minor decisions, & are also there to be the "fall guy" if a sane decision by their Sgt is thwarted by the enemy.
This is why so many former officers end up on the government teat, in a meaningless job somewhere in the public service (eg riding as a passenger on long haul bus trips, recording in a notebook the driver's breaks) whilst their Sgt has a real job, as head of an engineering department working on the Boston Harbour Project, or something like that.
There are of course smarter & more capable former officers, who enter a profession that has some meaning, and where the pay is more than they drew for wearing jungle green. But boy-oh-boy, do plenty of 'em end up selling vacum cleaners or somesuch.
Then occassionally one turns up who slipped through the system. We are blessed with one particular Duntroon graduate in our federal parliament. One could be forgiven for thinking this person is a serial malcontent, as he has at various times been a member of almost every political party, from one end of the political spectrum to the other.
Notable recently for threatening to throw the toys out of the cot if he doesn't get his way on a whole shopping basket of 10th-tier policies, he has also managed to cry his eyes out in parliament. (Must have been one real macho he-man platoon commander).
One's military experience can be ruined by being stuck with an officer who is bad news. Wonder what it was like to be in the battalion commanded by this deep-voiced confidence-inspiring macho-man? (That was a joke, he's a whiny voiced sniveller) It must be stressed here that fragging is a very bad thing to do, and this blog does not, repeat does not, mean to imply, in any way, that the bullets that killed this particular C.O. should have had anything other than "made in Japan" written on them. (Or whatever the modern equivalent is, "halal approved by Mullah Omar" or somesuch.)
How did this..er.. former officer... ever get through the selection process for Duntroon?
3 comments:
"For it is the N.C.O's who know how to run things."
Which is why it's an honour if an officer's family is invited to join in the whist drive as the Sergeants' mess, as ours was, whereas an invitation to the officers' mess means nothing much.
I expect I'm a bit out of date, but when I was young my mother referred to most officers as "educated idiots" - there was a thick glass ceiling between ORs and the officers, since the latter had an entirely different (express, class-based) route into command. I think there's a lot more clever training in leadership these days, now that forelock-tugging isn't taken for granted.
She also said thank God for civilians, because when a war broke out the Army got an influx of people who knew how to get things done.
Your officer of the day didn't happen to be Air Force, did he?
Said the Sea Bee with tongue firmly in cheek.
Perhaps he/s a trangender?
Really s/he seems to suffer mood swings so much one wonders of s/he has periods and pmt.
Would explain the voice too.
Anyone checked which gender s/he was admitted to Duntroon?
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