it's not really about the vulgarities you know ....
if anything, I'd prefer that the rationale for certain curious
orders and commander behaviours be explained to the trainees
....
it was only towards the tail end of my service, when I got access
to training plans, that I realized that often, those so called
"tekan" sessions are carefully orchestrated and managed .... to
maintain the psychological pressure on the trainees, to inure
soldiers to constant stress ... that's the closest the SAF can do
to simulate the stress of combat .....
if you can show me a way to achieve that without yelling and
obscenities, I'd be all for it .....
but I certainly do NOT agree to a slackening of physical standards
and hardships in the field .... until the day when all our
frontline combatants are replaced by gun-toting robots, we cannot
afford to turn into mouse-clicking, button pushing pansies just yet
.... it's not about the bragging rights that sleeping in the rain
with mud and grit in your underwear somewhere in the ulus ..... but
a necessity .....
of course .... perhaps the brass more accustomed to air-conditioned
planning rooms with banks of lappies attended by pale NS geeks
would find it see that ....
