The deplorable state of our armed forces – or what remains of them – could become a whole lot worse if some new ideas are implemented. Turns out our recruits, while undergoing boot camps, are not getting enough sleep and the proposed solution is to let them lie-in for an extra hour each day.
At the present time there are no plans for delivering breakfast in bed but, surely, that can’t be far down the line. Some other suggestions (ones I made up) could include a ‘turning down’ service – that ludicrous nonsense that goes on in hotels whereby your sheet is turned down to allow easy access (how hard can it be?), the hotel slippers are strategically positioned to welcome your feet in the morning, and they leave a chocolate on your pillow. We could also let them turn up for parade in their pyjamas, and issue each of them with a regulation-sized teddy bear.
One of my sons went off to become a boy soldier at 16 years of age to that wonderful institution in Harrogate, the Army Foundation College. The first thing we were told when the new recruits and parents were assembled in the main lecture hall was that our sons and daughters would “learn that six o’clock occurs twice a day”. We had spent years getting our son out of bed in the mornings for his paper round, often only after the shop had phoned us at 8am, and the concept of making a bed never occurred to him.
He returned to us on his first leave utterly transformed. Up bright and early each day, bed made and as fit as the proverbial butcher’s dog. Many of the young people we saw that first day had dropped out at the earliest opportunity and others fell by the wayside as the year progressed. He was self-sufficient, had some money in his pocket, could fire an SA80 rifle and had successfully kept his head down – thus keeping his head – in live fire exercises. Moreover, he has taken what he learned back into civilian life and now has a very successful job.
Two of his older sisters also joined the army, one remains. Both served in Afghanistan and, like my son, have benefited greatly from their time in the army. I have even dabbled in military matters myself although, as a military nurse, I was probably more danger to our own soldiers than to the enemy.
Apparently, the problem with not getting enough sleep is that people find it harder to study; they perform better and behave better if they get more sleep. I mean, who would have thought? But the problem is not the training itself, the combined culprits are: “Room-mates chatting into the early hours, too much time spent scrolling on phones and the temptation of video games mean recruits are often sleep deprived while undergoing hard physical training.” To which the solution seems relatively simple: no ‘chatting’ after ‘lights out’ (traditionally 10pm), and no use of mobile phones or playing video games either. And what about adding the extra hour on at the start of the night rather than the finish, with lights out at 9pm?
Surely one of the points of boot camp is that people will drop out. Where survival is the name of the game when the bullets start flying in some remote corner of the world, then survival of the fittest at the start of the process provides a useful filtering mechanism. No matter how well a potential recruit answered questions at interview, performed in a psychometric test and passed a medical examination, you simply cannot know how well they will manage when exposed to army discipline and the rigours of life as a recruit. For anyone needing an extra hour in bed in the morning, there is a simple solution: the bus home; don’t come back, and have as many lie-ins as you want on Civvy street.
Everyone is different physically and mentally and some people can survive on little sleep or learn to do so. When it comes to sending men and women into war zones, we want the brightest and the fittest and, of course, we want the ones who can get up early and function. If we do, God forbid, send our troops over to Ukraine to sabre rattle on behalf of our deluded and war hungry Prime Minister, they won’t be granted any lie-ins by President Putin if he decides he would rather they were not there.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Restricting mobile use will mean zero new recruits (yooman rites innit) or 99.9% dropouts. From personal experience, those age groups who might be potential recruits I see daily at the gym and they spend more time looking at their mobiles than actually using the equipment, some even place their mobiles on a towel at the pool side and check it every few lengths.
I wonder if the mobile addicts ever stop scrolling long enough to wonder how those who don’t own or take out with them a mobile manage to survive?