My Grandfather's army

I got totally screwd by a warrant officer on Thursday night for a rule I broke although I was given authorisation from my own superior, and for a reason I deemed to be valid for one of my men might have had his safety breached. When I tried to reason with a Guard commander (a sergeant) to tell his guard prowlers to look out for the person, the warrant officer, in his presence, used certain expletives on me, raised his voice to max and told me to get lost in the most humiliating way. His reasoning: they were not my guards and I should not tell them what to do.

Later on in my imagination, I had a chat with the sympathetic sergeant guard com.

Sergeant: That was a really terrible incident. I didn't mean for it to happen. Indeed I know your position and was ready to tell my prowlers to open their eyes for your man, because we understand that someone's safety is on the line and in the army we help each other out.

Private: Is this what the army has become, respector of rigidity and intolerance to flexibility? If a man were to be lying, dying on the road now, had my actions although perhaps wrong by one rule book, been considered imperative by the heart and head? Have we become cowards to doctrine, and stooges to written authority? I believe what I did to be right and have a clear conscience.

Sergeant: Yet, I feel sorry for you. He treated you as if he were saying "Is this your grandfather's army"*.

Private, with a chuckle: He wants to know about MY grandfather's army?

Some silence prevails, as the air suddenly gets filled with a sense of heroism with what is about to follow.

Private: My grandfather has commanded tens of thousands of men. He has had the burden of keeping everyone of their lives intact, while trying to save a country. My grandfather has met and evaded death on many counts, the finality being when he had a limb blown off. He had many men under his count, but the very people who loved him suffered as well. Yet he lived like a general does, and he does have an army.

The sergeant sits straight and listens intently.

Private: There are some men who are respected because they ARE. There are some men who slap it in your face like a fish that doesn't belong to them. My grandfather has shouted at thousands of men to save their lives and to save their country. Let one man shout at a puny private if it gives him joy and the power he needs to feel for a moment. That kind of respect is just an illusion he can enjoy for that fleeting moment. It is inconsequential. But I'd rather be shouted at by my grandfather than him, because I know my grandfather knows best, but the man who 'disciplined' me just finds a way to vilify me to glorify himself.



*'Is this your grandfather's army' I believe is a common saying by superiors when they taunt you for being sloppy. I think it's been used on me once and I was extremely amused.