I have to agree with young Dallas, as a dyed in the wool "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War" I too was slow to appreciate the game had changed, the powers-that-be want soldiers that can sort-of do the difficult stuff as well rather than professional airmen/women that don't want to play squaddie in the first place, hence letting us old bu@@ers drip on whilst indoctrinating the youngsters with the spirit of the Hitler Youth and leveraging us out with BFT/CFT/CCS/FT secondments to the army, 16 AA and the rest. Try telling them "I didn't join-up for this" and be described as 'gasp' “resistant to change!”
The future's dull, the future's purple*
For purple read ARMY -the fun's over chaps