>>>...in case he calls his soldiers morons, idiots, mindless beasts, and goes far of his way just to fuc* their mothers about once every five minutes. Respect is reciprocated.
>>
>>Sorry, old bean, but I was being silly enough to think of the way in which a British officer would conduct himself. No way you'd hear such language or oaths from him. Maybe one time the non-coms may have spoken like that to the men but, with a non-conscript army, they'd be hard-pressed to hold on to the men. It's said that nowadays the army have to pussy-foot with the recruits in a way never seen before (whereas the screaming British rgt sgt maj is the epitome of discipline from all the old films), not the least reason being that the young men are used to a far higher degree of luxury (and lack of discipline - see other threads) on civvy street then in the past.
>
>The above outbursts of language we regularly heard when these guys came to learn rugby. And they were there voluntarily, and didn't even blink as the man poured it weekend after weekend for the whole summer!

Rugby in the summer! ????
They are traditionally a foul-mouthed bunch anyway, in the UK. Their post-match songs are obscene.

>
>I did, and still do, maintain that the military mind is insane by definition, and found my surroundings a good proof of that, but on this example I saw that there are limits to what it can do to one. Whereas the world of sports seems to be even more insane, just in a different direction.

And rugby players are just about as insane as it's possible to get, in team sports, alongside ice hockey players (and I believe lacrosse is viscious)

>
>>Time was, during conscription, if a lance corporal said s**t, a soldier strained. Nowadays the non-coms get no real power until 3 stripes and, if they tried to bully the men as descibed, they'd get a regimental tucking in, as decribed.
>>
>>>
>>>Now that was the army I knew in the eighties... what happened later, I wouldn't know. I managed to not be there when I was invited. From what I heard, most of them were drunk (on all sides) whenever possible, and there's an estimate that maybe one in five bought it via friendly fire.
>>
>>Trouble with your language: you don't know vich from vich.
>
>The hotheads are the same, no matter on vich side.
>
>p.s. can "lance corporal" really be translated as "bodily spear"?

I imagine that originally the rank would have carried a particular spear as a badge of rank as well as weapon. Maybe it means the embodiment of a lance - its whole soul and being pledged in allegiance to its master.