RAF/RN Culture Differences
Whilst on RAF IOT at Cranwell in 1981- 5 of us were told on Thursday we would be travelling to Dartmouth on Sat to compete in Tri college cross country- We arrived and the RAF SRego who was with us told us the RAF had always come last in this race and the same would happen this time but we were to try hard!
The RN team were all Marine officers who had returned from Artic Warfare to train for the event several weeks earlier- one chap asked me how long we had been training - we only heard on Thursday was the reply - he asked if we had any men with us- we were perplexed till he mentioned that they would never run with enlisted men in the team because if one fell they would have to stop. The Sandhurst team showed up and each one was an Ethiopian officer cadet -yep, we came last by a long way. That night we went into the Dartmouth cadets mess- they appeared to do an 18 month IOT - all in a large barrack block with dawn sailing on the Dart- we were invited ashore for drinks- I returned to Cranwell defeated in the race but with a better appreciation of the different cultures of the services and the relative ease of our 18 week IOT compared to the RN course!