...what you do not have an insight into is how the course has changed to accomodate the PC world in which we now live. .... Lets face it, you simply cannot direct a 'cadet' to run around a parade square with a chair above his head nowadays.
TM, while I see what you are trying to say I cannot agree that just because some lilly-livered pansies in an ivory tower say that running around a parade ground with a chair over your head is contrary to that individual's human rights doesn't make it so. Especially when the individual holds control over their fate insofar as they can, at any time, quit. What I find unpalatable is individuals that complain about such things as if they are being hard done by. It's a bit of physical exertion or verbal abuse neither of which will kill them and, if they believe it will, then quit. I'm quite sure that those that may find themselves in deep doody alongside such people in the future would be glad to know that they felt that a good yelling at was "all a bit too much for them".
That the para course was mental and physical abuse does not make AAITC any less challenging, especially to educated people who would question the motives of orders given, rather then asking is this high enough when told to jump. (No pun intended)
Surely, the "educated people" should have gone into AAITC with their eyes open. They should understand that they are being selected for and being trained to go to war and that, should they ever have to go, it will be far worse than anything some "tinpot dictator" at AAITC could dish out. Would they not have been better prepared and have researched the conditions they would be expected to endure? While not trying to be argumentative for the sake of it I believe the "educated people" argument is actually self defeating if for no other reason that, no matter which way you look at it, they should "know better".
As to naming people... I hear no complaints about/from all the people that were complimented for being "good lads", "top men", etc. Let's face it, if you spent a portion of your career being an arse then it should come as no surprise when those that you were an arse to point it out. Or is someone trying to say that they should be protected from the truth about them? If so I suspect they would feel quite at home in the ivory tower that says that running around with a chair is a breach of their human rights...
Oh Bugger... I just agreed with Seldom... I must go thrash myself within an inch of my life...
