Why do we need drill? Surely there are better more effective ways of instilling teamwork and leadership and discipline into soldiers? Why should the government invest such considerable quantities of public monies on the maintenance of Colours and banners when Defence is allegedly so under-funded? Surely these things are anachronisms, relics of bygone glories that have no place in a modern army?

“He remembered the battle: the noise, loneliness, fear: the shame of running, the terror when you didn’t. Running was a decision of the moment, but not running away went on and on. A rational army would run away.”

A rational army would run away. And it would. To stand and fight, to endure the unendurable, to achieve the impossible – to be involved in actions emblazoned throughout history – requires a special type of person, a properly trained soldier. And probably not so much trained in some areas as conditioned.

Camerone. The Alamo. Bastogne. Gallipoli. Rorke’s Drift. Hill 834. Chosin. Agincourt. Wake. Maleme. Monte Cassino. Little Round Top. Long Tan. Kapyong. Waterloo. Minquar Quim.

I have stacks to do but all this rain has been sapping my motivation – or maybe I am just going through a bit of computer rejection syndrome…I am quite excited that the second batch of chickens might actually survive – a design error saw batch 1 unable to hop back into the nest after they hopped out so the cold got them – there are two hopping and chirping around the coop at the moment with another hatching last time I checked them…

Anyway the opening paragraphs above are from a paper I started to write 10+ years ago, the subject of which is as topical now as it was back then in pre-war days…I think that the quote in the middle is from Jerry Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer…