EXCLUSIVE: Carpeted: Dozens of cadets at Sandhurst broke coronavirus rules in a drunken party at the prestigious military academy

[Gravelbelly]

...I am sure that they will set an example that the lower orders can look up to and admire.

Chippy, much? I'd suggest getting over it, I managed* I can't think of an occasion where an officer in our battalion got off more lightly than a soldier, and I can think of a couple of occasions where they were more heavily punished.

For instance, an attached soldier mysteriously appeared with a broken arm**; turns out he'd been caught going through someone else's locker, and was offered the Barrack Room version of "will you accept our punishment?" - place your arm across that gap, and we'll stamp on it. By contrast, the Sergeant found playing fast and loose with a Company fund was sacked from the Army; the Captain found doing so with smaller amounts, was sacked and ended up doing six months MCTC (with the last few weeks in Barlinnie).

* Pad brat, MoD schools, birth certificate says "Father: Cpl G....", and a large chunk of my year at school joined as Private soldiers. Silver spoon? Yeah, right.
** Ever seen a race in the Officers' Mess to demonstrate that you actually know what's really going on? It happens...

 

[Pteranadon]

Were you rustling your Daily Telegraph furiously and shouting "HARRUMPH!" when you wrote this? Shouting "STANDARDS!" as you discovered that Mafeking has now been relieved?

They're recruits. Daft little sods, many of them have only just crawled out of the comfy "safe learning environment" that is College or University, but essentially recruits. They've broken a rule (as you suggest) in contravention of orders, and got caught. They weren't stealing, they weren't lying, they weren't taking drugs, they weren't vandalising HM property, they weren't mistreating or abusing soldiers (or small furry animals). They got p!ssed, and at some point one of them stumbled into / threw something and missed / broke a TV set, for which they will be billed in full. It's hardly reason to be cashiered, strapped across the barrel of a field gun, or flogged around the Fleet. If recruits at Catterick did it, they'd probably be punished in exactly the same way... I foresee pressups. Lots of pressups. And show parades. And no chance of getting down town for a longgggg time. And many, many extra duties...

If you sacked every recruit (or soldier) who got drunk, it would be a very small, very boring, Army. They will be punished, but as everyone knows - if you can't do the time, don't do the crime...

Nor did they set fire to anyone like Cadet B L Montgomery

 

[History_Man]

Nor did they set fire to anyone like Cadet B L Montgomery

These days he would have got sent down and rightly so.

 

[Diogenes' limp]

The DS would just love their Christmas hols being fecked up in this manner.

Perhaps that points a finger towards the real issue here, these are young men persons, in the main, from what is a remarkably different generation, though probably just as worthy when they adjust from the current 'me' obsessed culture to the necessary one of responsibility and putting others first that the Army requires of them.

Potentially a very extensive change of culture and emphasis.

Whilst these cadets were selected for their potential to be able to make that change, they are only at the start of it, and the people who are really responsible for 'encouraging' that change should perhaps be spending a few uncomfortable nights reflecting on their effectiveness, along with their charges.

 

[Harry Skinters]

Mrs Gleebles brought to my attention the film she was watching on telly the other week, about some pads wives choir.

I gave it all of ten minutes and had a snigger at the classic stereotypical wives club rank structure.

There wasn't a cliche missed, senior officers wife dressed and behaving exactly as I remembered those clones were, asking the bods on the gate "Do you know who I am?" and congratulating the Badge's wife on 'her' recent promotion.

All working very hard to maintain centuries old 'tradition' and maintaining a rigid class structure.

The fact you gave it 10 minutes would suggest you have a man bun and enjoy being pegged.
I love my wife but if she ever touched the remote control or suggested a programme to watch, by fuck I'd thrash her.
Cruel to be kind really.

 

[Auld-Yin]

Perhaps that points a finger towards the real issue here, these are young men persons, in the main, from what is a remarkably different generation, though probably just as worthy when they adjust from the current 'me' obsessed culture to the necessary one of responsibility and putting others first that the Army requires of them.

Potentially a very extensive change of culture and emphasis.

Whilst these cadets were selected for their potential to be able to make that change, they are only at the start of it, and the people who are really responsible for 'encouraging' that change should perhaps be spending a few uncomfortable nights reflecting on their effectiveness, along with their charges.

Sounds like you are blaming the staff at RMAS for not getting with the woke and changing their attitude from that which the army needs for training soldiers to one of following the attitudes of society.

Now I grant you that the army does change following attitudes in society but that takes time and not always in exactly the way that society goes. We now have diversity at levels never dreamt of in the 1960s/70s, which in itself was the era of Flower Power and Love!

 

[Dan Gleebles]

The fact you gave it 10 minutes would suggest you have a man bun and enjoy being pegged.
I love my wife but if she ever touched the remote control or suggested a programme to watch, by **** I'd thrash her.
Cruel to be kind really.

I tip my hat to your outstanding domestic drills, Sir.

Mrs Gleebles was a pads wife and was hugely entertained by the memory jog of such cnuts as portrayed, it was that accurate.

No man bun here, but this pegging of which you speak...?

 

[Diogenes' limp]

Sounds like you are blaming the staff at RMAS for not getting with the woke and changing their attitude from that which the army needs for training soldiers to one of following the attitudes of society.

Now I grant you that the army does change following attitudes in society but that takes time and not always in exactly the way that society goes. We now have diversity at levels never dreamt of in the 1960s/70s, which in itself was the era of Flower Power and Love!

As an aside, I gazed out with envy contempt towards the hippies and the hairies oh, from the khaki magnificence of my youth, but no, I seem to have expressed myself badly, for that is almost the opposite of what I was speculating.

The basic tool for changing cadet from callow youth through to potential 2nd Lt is the DS SNCO/WO. Well it was in my day, fearsome soldiers of awe inspiring competence and there was considerable pride in their appointment to RMAS. The established leaders demonstrating leadership at the direct level.

I'm not seeking to detract from the individual responsibility of the cadets and of course there will be and should be high jinks, but, when it comes down to an incident involving this many cadets, the heat of the moment seems to have displaced the fear of respect for the DS. Should it have?

And maybe, if that is a fair observation, the DS should be considering if a re-calibration is necessary.

 

[Commentator]

When it comes down to an incident involving this many cadets, the heat of the moment seems to have displaced the fear of respect for the DS.

I think after nearly 3 months of being locked in camp apart from being on Exercise I imagine their appetite for risk had changed significantly!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

 

[Diogenes' limp]

I think after nearly 3 months of being locked in camp apart from being on Exercise I imagine their appetite for risk had changed significantly!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

Absolutely, but also, predictably. So if the notion is well founded that the man-managers at first instance are the SNCO/WOs, whilst the commissioned staff direct training and manage policy, then might it not be expected that the cream of the Army's SNCOs should be very alert to and experienced in anticipating that change and act accordingly?

Not hard to envisage the AcSM pondering that question, with percolator and single cup to hand.

 

[Gravelbelly]

Sounds like you are blaming the staff at RMAS for not getting with the woke and changing their attitude from that which the army needs for training soldiers to one of following the attitudes of society.

I took it slightly differently...

Our youth was one where parents and teachers were intolerant of any challenge or disobedience (on pain of, well, pain - be that a tawse or a slipper). We lived in a world where rules were commonly understood to be hard and fast, non-negotiable, and that Those In Authority were Always Right, Never Wrong, and when told to Jump, you asked "how high?" on the way up...

Those days have gone, and good riddance. The flipside of that growth in the average national level of self-confidence, is that the average yoof arriving in Catterick or Camberley will have an expectation that the world makes some kind of sense. "Just because!" isn't enough - we're hopefully past the days where the DS was God, when shouting was the answer to all training problems, and when bottom-third Corporals were let loose to train recruits badly. Mission Command applies, the rules need to make sense. If, say, the offending Cadets went "hold on - all three parts of our artificially-divided-into-three-social-bubbles Company has been completely isolated for two weeks, and none of us have had any cases of COVID" then it's perhaps possible that they decided "nah, it doesn't make sense, what's the harm". It breaks the rules, they'll get punished, and rightly so - but you can understand the (wrong) thinking, and I suspect they'll have it explained to them. Over and over, as they're carrying telegraph poles to the far end of Barossa and back.

Yes, they have to learn that occasionally there isn't time for a debate over whether Plan A is really a good idea, and that they should just double away and do as they're told, but that takes time. Nothing to do with being woke, everything to do with not suffering fools gladly.

PS Worked example that it wasn't always "do as you're told!", even in our long-ago youths: Falklands War, Mount Tumbledown. Urban myth had it that allegedly, the Company Commanders listened to the CO's outline plan, had a huddle, disagreed politely, and suggested an alternative. Which the CO accepted. And they were Guardsmen...

 

[Dan Gleebles]

The Cadets are laughing at the DS, knowing they're off home to mum for Christmas, and there's fcuk all any of that lot can do about it.

Cheers easy.

 

[History_Man]

The Cadets are laughing at the DS, knowing they're off home to mum for Christmas, and there's fcuk all any of that lot can do about it.

Cheers easy.

I think that they should be made to have a jolly festive season at BL's gaff; after all, he is a meeter and greeter par excellence and has the culinary aspect nailed down flat. They could even sample his home brew if they required an alcoholic beverage.

 

[ExREME.TECH]

Sorry it's not a decent paper, but stand by for a degree of fall out.

Dozens of cadets at Sandhurst broke coronavirus rules in drunken party

EXCLUSIVE: Army chiefs launched an investigation after trainee officers went on a drunken spree in the Old College.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Dozens of cadets at Sandhurst have been disciplined for breaking coronavirus rules by holding an alcohol-fuelled party at the prestigious military academy, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Army chiefs launched an investigation after trainee officers went on a drunken spree in the Old College, which faces the famous parade ground where graduates take part in the passing out ceremony.
It is understood that about 50 cadets, who had been ordered to stay in three separate 'platoon bubbles', got drunk together before throwing alcohol that glowed in the dark over each other and smashing up a TV.

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/mail-we-hate-the-military-and-raf-on-sunday.288801/

 

[Harry Skinters]

I tip my hat to your outstanding domestic drills, Sir.

Mrs Gleebles was a pads wife and was hugely entertained by the memory jog of such cnuts as portrayed, it was that accurate.

No man bun here, but this pegging of which you speak...?

I've known people like it
Timid daft wife while they're wearing Corps colours dressing gown around the house flicking cigar ash on their own floor like some wayward royal. Fucking Lance Jack and all

 

[Auld-Yin]

I think that they should be made to have a jolly festive season at BL's gaff; after all, he is a meeter and greeter par excellence and has the culinary aspect nailed down flat. They could even sample his home brew if they required an alcoholic beverage.

They could do no worse as BL has so much experience apologising to the Good and Great so will be able to pass on some tips. One tip may be not to blame Brexit when they are tabbed in!

 

[retread2]

Once had an officer refusing to "officer"....

I've certainly come across the odd one who didn't appear to be 'officering' to any discernible extent.

 

[bob_the_bomb]

Mrs Gleebles brought to my attention the film she was watching on telly the other week, about some pads wives choir.

I gave it all of ten minutes and had a snigger at the classic stereotypical wives club rank structure.

There wasn't a cliche missed, senior officers wife dressed and behaving exactly as I remembered those clones were, asking the bods on the gate "Do you know who I am?" and congratulating the Badge's wife on 'her' recent promotion.

All working very hard to maintain centuries old 'tradition' and maintaining a rigid class structure.

Was any OMO involved?

 

[bob_the_bomb]

Slight thread drift, apologies to the OP:-

That is now, try living with that mind-set back in the stone age of my service the 70,s. As an officers driver (Exercises, and shoveling drunk commissioned heaps into the Rover, and back to their pads at silly O'Clock in the morning from a mess piss up) some of the chinless wonders i came across would do credit to P.G.Woodhouse, and kipling's verses on the Raj of the 19th century.

One of the minor reasons i signed off, was being talked down to by fuckwit subbies with minimal time served, i disliked their nose in the air attitude , not rank, which i respected, but their innate inbred perceived class superiority. My broad east london cockney dialect was seen as a class pointer, and so i was treated and spoken to accordingly. I must at this time state that the mongs mentioned above were few and far between, and the vast majority of Rodney's and Rupert's i came across were perfect officers. My own OC and Sqn officers, all excellent.

Their wives, i found out on Snow queen, were as you described them, and one or two far from being the upstanding and virtuous officers wife's, were getting royally reamed by the one or two members of the permanent staff. ( Officers , wife's and brats course, Christmas and new year)

Class superiority?

From Royal Signals officers?

You’re having a laugh...

 

[Lifeboat21]

They could do no worse as BL has so much experience apologising to the Good and Great so will be able to pass on some tips. One tip may be not to blame Brexit when they are tabbed in!

He may even apologise on their behalf.