Topic: Drill and Training
Everyone Hated Training
Six War Years 1939-1945, Barry Broadfoot, 1974
Everyone in the forces hated training. It was intended, of course, to instill absolute discipline. Do this, soldier, or do that, sailor, and don't ask why. But so much of it was in the military term, chicken shit. Too much time was spent on parade square drills. Too much on the art of saluting. Too much in the correctness of walking-out dress. Too much on how to pack a haversack, stow a hammock, board an aircraft. Too much bayonet drill. Who would ever get close enough to a German to stick that thing in his gut?
But then came the realization of what it was all about. The almost automatic action of cleaning the rifle after firing could save your life because a jammed barrel could mean a blow-up. Those hours of digging silly slit trenches in the rain paid off when shells were bursting around you. All those hours and days and weeks of training, apparently meaning-less, all came together. The soldier, the sailor, the airman in combat had to ignore fear but still live with it - and it was the housekeeping lessons learned long ago in some Canadian training camp that helped him live with war.
But, oh God, like everyone who went through it, I remember the frustrations, the chicken shit, the rules and regulations, and the cocky corporals and the overbearing sergeants of those training camps, they were enough to break a man's spirit. But if they did, perhaps he was not much.
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