Originally Posted by Dirty Sanchez
So correct me if I am wrong, you spend 5 days at Cranditz, ponce around for group photo's fill in some paperwork, errrrrm, bit of classroom maybe then what a commssioning scroll?? hardly the same as the 24 now 30 odd week course is it???
Fair enough, you do a good/thankless job with cadets et al, however there are a few around the bazaars who regard themselves with a little too much importance.
On the subject of saluting, I would love to see the audacious (Virtual Reality Officer) individual who pulled someone up for not saluting them.....now that would be a larf.
Back to the original question about epaulettes, then any PPL'er who wears 'em should be debriefed accordingly, after all you need to do 20 odd hours and a few exams to drive a car, and I don't see anyone wearing formula 1 racing overalls to nip down to ASDA. It is nothing short of pretentious and a rather sad reflection on the individual........
Why would VRT officer training (the whole week of it) be equal to regular IOT anyway? The job of a VRT is basically to look after children, not get deployed to fight or support a war.
You'll get idiots in all walks of life, yes there are walts in the VRT, posing, but the ones that stay do it for the cadets. And that's what the VRT course is for - to equip you to be a (uniformed) youth leader. The good VRT officers don't ponce around at Cranwell, they try to learn as much as possible (and take advantage of the low mess bar prices
).
To get back onto subject! Yes PPL with stripes look silly unless they have a good reason. 'Nuff said. I think you'd probably find that those have them are the same sort of people who join the VRT so they can wear a uniform.