Cadets
I'm in the cadet force. Yes, yes, mock as you will, I don't think I'm a real soldier though.

I'm fairly senior and last year I was with 3 other senior cadets training about 20 RAF cadets. The Army and Navy sections from the same school were on the camp as well.

13 year old cadets actually tend to cock up the simplest of tasks. They march with their left arm going up as their left leg goes up (stand up and try to do it, it's really hard to do without concentrating). Most embarrasing of all, they turn left after being told to turn right.

This is the story of a small, fragile 13 year old. Standard humourous punishment for this is an audience of whoever was around at the time, the culprit standing up, raising their left leg and, Full Metal Jacket style, with prompts from the NCO, recite "This is my left leg. I love my left leg. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. I must learn to master my left leg." Rinse and repeat for right leg. Cadets rarely make this mistake more than twice, it's almost as effective as having them polish a big L into their left boot and an R into their right boot.

Well, a Navy cadet turned the wrong way. He was called up in front of the 15 or so strong Navy section and instructed to start. He delayed, waiting for the RAF section to turn up to show off in front of his mates. So now it's 35. The Army are right behind the RAF, now it's about 85. Then all the other NCOs and officers stroll up. We're at about 110. Kid is starting to get a little nervous.

Kudos to him, he gets up in front of 110 people, lifts his left leg, and starts reciting it. He knew it all already, but it's hardly complicated. He then lifts his right leg. For some reason I can never tell he lifted his left leg and did it again. It just so happened that I was stood right next to him at the time. As he lifted his right leg and shouted "THIS IS MY RIGHT LEG." I said "left". I am god, so he obeyed me. "I LOVE MY LEFT LEG". 110 callous people start laughing. Hard.

Cadet starts wobbling back and forth and runs off into the night to have a good cry.

Whoops.

Didn't feel any shame though at the time, although my girlfriend called me evil when she heard, the army NCOs laughed with me and the Navy NCOs who knew the kid told me that he was too nice to make cry.

Fast forward about a year. Cadet is still in the Navy section. I'm watching them drill, helping them out when he walks up to me and says "I hate you." I work out who he is, apologise (it was a little mean I suppose) and walk off. Suddenly I experience some form of delayed shame.

Oh I'm evil.


Almost forgot the customary penis joke. Would be out of place to apologise though, I don't even give the cadets any warning.
(Toucan - http://www.titmonday.com, Wed 30 Nov 2005, 23:47, Reply)