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Join the Forces

Started by Shoulders?-Stomach!, May 08, 2021, 10:54:57 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Shoulders?-Stomach!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5649b814-cd0e-4fea-b209-00608d670ce2

Good on the BBC I suppose for publishing this article which is a timely reminder of the hellhole that is the armed forces, toxic masculinity which is reinforced all the way up the chain that says being bullied makes you tougher. Then read the corporate response which follows. Flat out denies that culture exists. Bullshit.

Remember that during Prince Harold of Hearts stint in the Brave Boys, he once had an Asian mate he and the lads called 'p**i'? Must have been great fun, and all the lads can go back and in the years to come talk about their adventures with 'p**i' and how he was one of the good ones, loved a laugh, you can't say fairer than loving a laugh can you? And similarly 'p**i' can tell all his mates how ahhh it was alright really you know how it is, hahaha only broke me fundamentally as a person ahahaha cold sweats from hazing flashbacks from my mid-20s hahahaha

SpiderChrist

I fucking hate the armed forces.

When I was a snotnose teenager, the army used to come to our school on the regular and try and recruit the thicker more patriotic kids. There was a big increase in their appearances after the Falklands/Malvinas brouhaha.

My brother's friend Heshan joined the army at 16 and left due to racist bullying, I have had to run from pissed up squaddies on a Saturday night more than once when I was younger.

Unfortunately Mrs SC's Dad is ex-RAF and her niece married another RAFfer so I tend to keep my opinions to myself, especially as my reputation as a perma-stoned vegan rankles with them all enough as it is.

ETA: This slogan from the 70s still amuses me:

QuoteJoin the Army; travel to exotic, distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people - and kill them.

Funnily enough, I was just reading this article, sounds lovely in France too.

Quote
After having a bag put over his head, the recruit in his 30s was transported to a live-fire target range, tied to a target, and then heard fighter jets open fire and drop munitions around him for 20 minutes, the newspaper reported.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Culture of singling out and isolating anyone different or weak, amplified by the fact such a high % are dropouts and early school leavers for the same precise fact they couldn't handle themselves in that environment.

Culture of using Corbyn posters as target practice. Culture of mass rape in war time. Culture of abuse of PoWs, culture of total abandonment of ethics and morals and subservience to a scum chimpanzee level dynamic.

Culture that leaves young men shellshocked, penniless, homeless, addicted to drugs, criminalised and fucked on the streets of the country afterwards.

Walk into Benefits Office: Sorry mate, looks like you didn't Man Up, sorry about that, nothing we can do. What are your qualifications, oh shooting farmers, sorry not got any of that in right now, Man Up though yeh?

The most concentrated poisonous elements of society given weapons and power, from the elite who run it to the disinfected miscreants dragged from the shitheaps of society who are the cannon fodder left to organise their perversely unhealthy barracks hierarchy at the bottom.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: SpiderChrist on May 08, 2021, 11:11:31 AMWhen I was a snotnose teenager, the army used to come to our school on the regular and try and recruit the thicker more patriotic kids. There was a big increase in their appearances after the Falklands/Malvinas brouhaha.
This was happening when I was that age in the 90s. The whole thing seemed a lot of shite to me, but then I had made my mind up early on that I was getting the fuck out of my hometown by virtue of going to whichever university was daft enough to accept me. But a lot of other lads came up with that culture their fathers/grandfathers come up through, where you left school ASAP and went straight to work in heavy industry - of course, by 1997, all that had gone so the army was one of the few places a 16 year old with no qualifications could go.

Mind, that probably wasn't a bad time to sign up - Northern Ireland had calmed down a bit and I don't think you were in much danger of being set anywhere too dangerous. Some lads I knew said the first few years was a relative breeze - then September 11th 2001 rolled around.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Been around ex-Army people who have made it to petty positions of authority in humdrum civilian life. Mental, the lot of them. Angry man babies with hair trigger tempers and a nasty bullying streak that they would never get away with if their CV just read Uni / Waitrose / Desk Job. Of course, they don't miss an opportunity to use their experience to remind people of why they are different and special, which seems to be why they manage to attain positions for which they are almost uniquely unsuited, while creating a load of human wreckage around them as they shout, blunder and panic their way through the next lot of problems, all the while avoiding the disciplinary action their behaviour deserves.

Jockice

I couldn't join up because every time I get told to obey orders I faint.

I go weak in the presence of duty!

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Jockice on May 08, 2021, 11:41:43 AM
I go weak in the presence of duty

It's why you lost your job at customs & excise.

SpiderChrist

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on May 08, 2021, 11:39:10 AM
Been around ex-Army people who have made it to petty positions of authority in humdrum civilian life. Mental, the lot of them. Angry man babies with hair trigger tempers and a nasty bullying streak that they would never get away with if their CV just read Uni / Waitrose / Desk Job. Of course, they don't miss an opportunity to use their experience to remind people of why they are different and special, which seems to be why they manage to attain positions for which they are almost uniquely unsuited, while creating a load of human wreckage around them as they shout, blunder and panic their way through the next lot of problems, all the while avoiding the disciplinary action their behaviour deserves.

Yes - I worked for a bloke who had joined the army at 16, done his 20 years, and then gone into management - he ended up as my manager. We had a lad in the office who got beaten up at a gig and then went into a depressive state and was signed off work. I was his line manager. One day ex-forces bloke wants to have a chat with me - apparently the lad who had been signed off with depression had been playing Sunday League football and this was unacceptable ("I didn't even take a day off work when my Dad died" was apparently something to be proud of). No amount of me trying to explain that physical exercise is recommended as an aid when depressed would wash. The lad was signed off sick so clearly shouldn't be playing football, or he was playing football so there was clearly nothing wrong with him.

Last time I checked, this man had been appointed a mental health ambassador at my workplace. Presumably he just shouts "I DIDN'T EVEN TAKE A DAY OFF WORK WHEN MY DAD DIED" when anybody tries to open up to him.

SpiderChrist

Sorry, me again (I'll be off in a mo)

One of my (many) problems with this country is the automatic assumption that putting on a uniform and doing anything some cunt tells you to do, without question, is something to admire and/or aspire to. Help For Heroes, Poppy Fetishisation and the whole Tom Moore clusterfuck are but recent high level examples of this utter bollocks.

mothman

Whenever I encounter one of these types online, I usually make disparaging remarks about how hard it must have been for them... in the Catering Corps, which works them into an even greater fury. It's deliciously satisfying.

Kankurette

I hate people who glorify war and bang on about how great National Service is. Makes me glad I'm too old to serve. And the parties who only care about soldiers when they're fighting but won't provide support to them or their families if they get injured, become disabled or die. Being in the army would be my idea of hell. There have been so many cases in the IS military if women being raped or murdered. Vanessa Guillen, for example.

Also, militarists keep saying 'they're keeping you safe'. Who from? I'm not being a cunt, I genuinely don't know.

ETA: Shoulders has just reminded me of one reason why Liverpool gangsters have access to guns and grenades: their army mates give them weapons.

Pijlstaart

There are always positive stories. If step-brother hadn't joined the army and spent years working penguin dispersal on the falklands, he'd never have been trained to drive a forklift and his glittering career moving pallets about a warehouse might never have been. It was the making of him.  Burr-ruh-ruh ruh-ruh ruh-ruh, he sings with pride, cantering bemedalled about the Pijlstaart family dinner table, arms outstretched in forklift position. He's a protector, certainly the dangerous dogs he keeps locked in his ancient mitsubishi shogun would have gobbled us up long ago if not for his protective influence.

Icehaven

Mr. Haven is an ex-squaddie, he was in the Army for over ten years from his teens to his late twenties (so before we met) and did two tours of Iraq, which contributed considerably to his subsequent mental health problems, his divorce and a lot of other personal troubles that he's managed to mostly put behind him now but will never go away completely. He's ambivalent about it as whole, as he enjoyed the camaraderie and 'brotherhood', the travel (being stationed in Germany and going on training trips to Canada and Egypt. Iraq not so much) and driving a tank, but was less keen on being sent to an illegal war (he hates Blair more than anyone I've ever met) and the lack of support he had after leaving. I'd say disillusioned is the main way he feels about it now. The ads make me laugh, there's one for the Navy at the moment that makes it look as if they just spend all their time travelling the world, playing football and dancing. Maybe they do, there's not so many battles at sea these days, but I doubt it.

BlodwynPig

Most of the contractors I work with are ex-army and to a man and woman they speak with the same toff-nosed accent and authoritarian cadence, and give off bully vibes. I hate it.

mothman

Quote from: icehaven on May 08, 2021, 01:25:12 PM
there's one for the Navy at the moment that makes it look as if they just spend all their time travelling the world, playing football and dancing. Maybe they do, there's not so many battles at sea these days, but I doubt it.

To be fair they don't have many ships left. The fucking French have more than we do, doubt you'll see THAT factoid mentioned in the Mail's rolling coverage of are brive boys preparing to invade Jersey.

Icehaven

Quote from: mothman on May 08, 2021, 01:52:00 PM
To be fair they don't have many ships left.

Why do they keep advertising for more recruits then? Is it possible a lot of them leave shortly after realising it's not a permanent round the world lads holiday?

mothman

Yeah, it's very shaky ground morally, all those kids born in Blyth, made in the Royal Navy, then dumped back in Blyth, now depressed and disgruntled and unemployable - and able to kill you with their little finger, as they'll tell you down the pub apropos of nothing.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on May 08, 2021, 11:21:14 AM
Culture that leaves young men shellshocked, penniless, homeless, addicted to drugs, criminalised and fucked on the streets of the country afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KtyMcb86go&ab_channel=VFPUK

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on May 08, 2021, 11:39:10 AM
Been around ex-Army people who have made it to petty positions of authority in humdrum civilian life. Mental, the lot of them. Angry man babies with hair trigger tempers and a nasty bullying streak that they would never get away with if their CV just read Uni / Waitrose / Desk Job. Of course, they don't miss an opportunity to use their experience to remind people of why they are different and special, which seems to be why they manage to attain positions for which they are almost uniquely unsuited, while creating a load of human wreckage around them as they shout, blunder and panic their way through the next lot of problems, all the while avoiding the disciplinary action their behaviour deserves.

Mates dad was an ex-army and a Scout Leader. He liked to run it like a fascistic Sargent Major, I'm sure it's a common thing.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: icehaven on May 08, 2021, 01:25:12 PM
Mr. Haven is an ex-squaddie, he was in the Army for over ten years from his teens to his late twenties (so before we met) and did two tours of Iraq, which contributed considerably to his subsequent mental health problems, his divorce and a lot of other personal troubles that he's managed to mostly put behind him now but will never go away completely. He's ambivalent about it as whole, as he enjoyed the camaraderie and 'brotherhood', the travel (being stationed in Germany and going on training trips to Canada and Egypt. Iraq not so much) and driving a tank, but was less keen on being sent to an illegal war (he hates Blair more than anyone I've ever met) and the lack of support he had after leaving. I'd say disillusioned is the main way he feels about it now. The ads make me laugh, there's one for the Navy at the moment that makes it look as if they just spend all their time travelling the world, playing football and dancing. Maybe they do, there's not so many battles at sea these days, but I doubt it.

The mate with the Scout leader dad I just mentioned went to the army too. He was in logistics and ended up stationed in Gütersloh, he told me a couple of 'army lads about town' stories that made my skin crawl. I think he eventually went to Iraq, but was annoyed he couldn't go at first, but apparently wanted to, mostly because he felt there was a toxic idea that the people not serving were lazy cowards.

I don't know how his entire time went but I definitely think he wasn't getting on with it at times due to him 'acting up' he got put in army prison for a night or so for turning up to a parade shitfaced and when spotted told his superior to fuck off. He also was forging sicknotes at one point. I lost touch with him for years but know he's not in there any more because I was at work one day logged into an MSN account and he told me as much. He said he was struggling to find work but doing a bit of lorry driving but not getting much 'because there were too many immigrants working for peanuts', being at work I made some excuse about needing to go, I've not spoke to him since. I do occasionally wonder how he's turned out but I don't think I want to meet him.

greenman

Quote from: SpiderChrist on May 08, 2021, 11:11:31 AM
ETA: This slogan from the 70s still amuses me:

Join the Army; travel to exotic, distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people - and kill them.

Was that a real slogan? I remember the line from Full Metal Jacket.

Icehaven

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on May 08, 2021, 02:16:55 PM
Mates dad was an ex-army and a Scout Leader. He liked to run it like a fascistic Sargent Major, I'm sure it's a common thing.

My maths teacher when I was 15 was new to school teaching having previously been an RAF phys ed teacher. He used to speak to us exactly as you'd imagine he spoke to his military victims, only (just about) minus the swearing. My year was the first he taught and I understand he was fired a few years later for an apparently inability to understand the difference in how to treat military recruits and GCSE maths pupils.

Butchers Blind

I tell you who are worse than army cunts and that's their fucking wives. Horrible, bigoted, entitled, nasty bitches.

SpiderChrist

Quote from: greenman on May 08, 2021, 02:43:11 PM
Was that a real slogan? I remember the line from Full Metal Jacket.

It was on t-shirts, badges etc. but not an official army slogan, no. I believe it originated towards the end of that whole Vietnam vs The Great Satan brouhaha.

Jakey Chesterton

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 08, 2021, 01:47:40 PM
Most of the contractors I work with are ex-army and to a man and woman they speak with the same toff-nosed accent and authoritarian cadence, and give off bully vibes. I hate it.

Some corkers of these accents in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMX_oBpDKQ

Comic content at the beginning from 'The Head of the Dhofar Gendarmerie' straining to sound the part and later with pathetic insecure comments about dole queues.

SpiderChrist

Quote from: Butchers Blind on May 08, 2021, 02:47:57 PM
I tell you who are worse than army cunts and that's their fucking wives. Horrible, bigoted, entitled, nasty bitches.

Ooft

*leaves thread sharpish*

Butchers Blind

Quote from: SpiderChrist on May 08, 2021, 02:53:31 PM
Ooft

*leaves thread sharpish*

Sorry. Speaking from experience having worked previously with three of them.

Kankurette

Quote from: BlodwynPig on May 08, 2021, 01:47:40 PM
Most of the contractors I work with are ex-army and to a man and woman they speak with the same toff-nosed accent and authoritarian cadence, and give off bully vibes. I hate it.
Sandhurst? That's where all the toffs go. Katie Hopkins went there, presumably because she was itching for the opportunity to go shoot some brown people.

ETA: didn't some genius suggest soldiers training as teachers?

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: icehaven on May 08, 2021, 02:47:44 PM
My maths teacher when I was 15 was new to school teaching having previously been an RAF phys ed teacher. He used to speak to us exactly as you'd imagine he spoke to his military victims, only (just about) minus the swearing. My year was the first he taught and I understand he was fired a few years later for an apparently inability to understand the difference in how to treat military recruits and GCSE maths pupils.

Ah yeah, I've never had a proper one in school but there were a few perpetually angry teachers that were obviously ex-army.

You've reminded me that I also had a P.E. middle-aged P.E. teacher who looked like a muscly extra in an action film (crew cut, moustache) who was clearly ex-forces. He had an act that was like an ex Sergeant/Brian Glover in Kes gone mad type thing. He was charismatic to pull it off and picked willing victims as a foil I think.

I don't think it was entirely zero cost, not least because his colleague who didn't possess the wit, self-awareness or charisma to pull it off imitated him and came across as a cunt. I think what best sums up the difference was when I overheard them chatting and the joker one said he'd told a kid if they guessed the date on some money they could have it, and the did.

"And did you give it him?"
"Yeah, course I did."
"mmm"