What you learn on a jungle warfare course
You learn to Lace up your boots so that a Gurkha recognises you’re a British soldier.
While the British military might well drop the odd bollock here and there at a strategic and cultural level, they are absolutely on point when it comes to tactics, and what that means is this: if the theatre of operations even mentions the word ‘jungle,’ no damn way are they doing it without the Gurkhas being there. It’s just not going to happen. But what this means for every Tommy out there is this: don’t go freelance with your boot laces, and only, only ever lace them up in the regulation manner. Your literal life depends on this, and here’s why.
The Gurkhas are so utterly badass that it’s an established fact that they will, at night, sneak up on literally anyone without them noticing, and again, without them knowing, feel in the darkness for the way their boots are laced up. If it’s anything other than regulation British, out comes the dreaded kukri, and it’s adios muchacho: one less enemy in this world.
Lace yer boots up proper, or face a Gurkha’s chopper!
Now, this might actually be just a myth, but I’m buggered if I’m willing to test it.
Then you learn how to make tea, jungle style.
It’s also an established fact that a cuppa tea is the secret ingredient to the British Tommy’s indomitable fighting spirit. And of course, it’s also absolutely no coincidence that Tommy and tea both start with the same letter.
You can’t be any more objective about it than that.
And because of that, we can be sure that the only reason for the Royal Navy’s existence is to always ensure that shipping and trade lanes remain open and that Britain’s tea supply is never ever interrupted, never mind stopped.
If that happens, then our brave soldiers will be like a bald Samson.
Ensuring a constant supply of tea for our soldiers was also why the Suez Canal was built, and absolutely no other reason. Forget about all of this empire bullshit, that was just a smokescreen.
And out there in the jungle, it’s a hostile environment like no other. It’s not just the enemy, it’s the weather, the humidity, the vegetation, the wildlife. It’s all against you, and if there’s one place where a cuppa tea is going to make a difference, it’s the jungle, so that’s what every troop gets taught what to do.
If you can’t make acuppa in the jungle, you’re already as good as dead.
And finally, jungle training is the British Army’s finishing school for whinging.
Which means that if you’re gonna survive, you need to complain about literally everything, because you really will have everything to complain about. The rain, the heat, the humidity, the undergrowth, the spiders, the leeches, the mosquitoes, the punji sticks, the flies, the smell, your smell, the blisters, the infected blisters.
And if you don’t moan about it, and then laugh about it, the enemy, who will likely be the last thing you’ll moan about, won’t need to take you out, you’ll have flipped out yourself and have to be casevac-ed to the mental health ward, and then fail the course.
Basics teaches every British soldier to be world class at swearing, jungle training raises that skill to complaining.
And from there, eventual promotion to staff college is practically assured, where they still swear just as much as the oiks, only they do it alongside a daquiri and not a can of lager.
Comments
Post a Comment