| Subject: Disillusionment? |
Author:
Dave Parker
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Date Posted: 21:36:11 02/12/05 Sat
Jim, I recon that everybody who served/serves a decade, or more, in the Army or, for that matter, in any job gets to a point where they say to themselves "This isn't the same mob I joined!" Nothing stays the same. We get comfortable with routine and feel safe with the "tried and trusted methods". At various times of our lives, we have to make 'life changing' decisions and I think we sometimes justify these decisions by using that revelation. One of the drawbacks of getting older, and there are a few! is the increase in resistance to change. We recognise, in this basic human failing, the inexorable march of time and our heightened awareness of our own mortality. Friggin hell, this is getting a bit deep!
You say that, for you, the change was in the early eighties but I recon it was in the early seventies. My moment of revelation came to me in 1972, in N.I. I don't mean to speak ill of the dead but a young Dave Quinn was my nemesis. In one incident where I ordered him to a task and he told me to F**K OFF, in front of the section, a sharp exchange of colourful words lead me to sticking him on a charge, in the process of which, he got off and I got fined a months wages for swearing at him. "The writing was on the wall". OK! I didn't immediately stick in my notice but this incident combined with others, later and not in my control, all contributed to my decision to call it a day, which I did in 1974.
It must be the same for each generation. I would imagine the old 'sweats' of the early sixties said exactly the same when they where discouraged from taking us nigs round the back and giving us a pasting to make us toe the line, though some of them still hadn't been persuaded by the time I joined! but you see what I'm getting at? Also, as technology came to play a bigger and bigger part in the more sophisticated equipment we where operating, I suppose the tolerance for the influence of alcohol got less and less, especially on op's. Having said that, the impression that I get of todays young soldiers makes me think they could see any of us under the table, so I don't think much has changed in that respect.
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