Caleb, do write all this up at full length (where's Singleton?), it sounds full
of painful comedy and social significance.
Max
Quoting Caleb Cluff <[log in to unmask]>:
> Ha - I was made a CUO (cadet under-officer) at boarding school on the
> strength of my father having been one, and some military history in the
> family. Needless to say, my platoon of some 40-odd teenage schoolboys were
> querulous at Singleton bivouac, and then mutinied outright at the annual
> passing out parade, sabotaging almost every display they were in. I have
> memories of canoes sinking and youths dangling helplessly from abseil
> displays, and a puce-faced major (in his daily life a Marist Brother, and at
> night given to drunken renditions of 'Sweet Adeline') screaming every threat
> he could muster if I didn't rein them in. As if.
>
> And the indignity of being saluted by real NCOs and soldiers whenever we
> were in their company, simply for wearing those little, meaningless,
> diamond-shaped epaulettes.
>
> Caleb
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