In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
Give me an army of "kids barely out of their teens" and I'll give you
an effective war-fighting force in about four years, provided I've got
a cadre of senior NCOs and Officers with the mettle to do the job.

I wasn't much of a soldier, though I wore the uniform and took the
Queen's shilling while I worked at learning the trade (and enjoyed most
of it; the rest I'll call 'character building'. *I* wasn't medevacked
with hypothermia even if other members of my platoon were! [Mostly, I
was in my basha when the rain hit so I was drier than they were in the
winds that followed... but why spoil a good story?]).


But with hindsight, one of the reasons the units I served in worked so
well was that each year's incoming cadre of 18 and 19-year old 'officer
cadets' ran head-on into some skilled, experienced and devious SNCOs
with good senior officers to back them up (definition of a good
adjutant... like God, you know He's there but you're glad you never get
proof of His existence ) and junior officers being given the chance
to sink or swim as leaders with a platoon of officer-cadets to lead. (If
we managed nothing else, we were a tough audience)

Even in peacetime, sorting "those who can lead" from "those who should
follow" and sifting out "arrogant buggers with too much technical
knowledge who think they *should* lead but lack the necessary skills[1]"
is not a simple task. My respects to those who tried to do so in
wartime.



[1] Yes, with hindsight, that was me. Still, better to try and fail...
and my current 'acting rank' is higher than anything I'd have achieved
in uniform, if you believe the published equivalencies.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk