‘

Walking

By Alan Sharpe reprinted from the Varsity Canadian University Press .

“Put all your kit (equipment) on the deck!” yells the instructor. ‘Stop acting like a bunch of brown-hatters (homosex- uals) and start switching on! (think- ing),” shouts another.

To the civilian, each instructor looks frighteningly fit and good at what he does. He also speaks a language the recruit has never heard before.

The British Royal Marines need nine months to turn civilian men into fully- trained fighters (there are no women in the corps). When he first steps off the train at the Commando Training Centre in Devon, the civilian is met by the training team and the person who appears to be in charge assure the new arrivals that he is reasonable and fair.

“I’m Sergeant Madsen, your TL (training leader),”” he says, “and I’m the one who is going to turn you from nods (recruits) into bootnecks (Roya! Marines). I’m a wazzer egg (great guy) and a good run-ashore (night on the town). You play ball with me and I'll hit you over the head with a cricket bat.”

The civilian may not realize it yet but he has just discovered the language of the Royal Marines. In nine months, if he is not part of the 70 per cent who fail commando training, he will have mas- tered-him. ts 6 6 hs >

The civilian now has short hair, wears a uniform ‘and*thé training structures his

the wa

life, but these conditions he expected. It takes more time to get used to the new way he must speak. 5

He is now in ‘‘The Corps’’ — one of the Royal Nova’s soldiers. Even on dry

land, nautical terminology is mandatory. .

He sweeps the deck, not the floor. He goes to the galley (kitchen) at scran time (meal time) with his yaffling spanners (knife, fort, etc.) in order to get Harry toppers (very full). He sleeps in his pit and, in the morning he no longer gets dressed, he puts. on his rig.

Surrounded daily by the language, the recruit finds it the only method of communication. The idiosyncrasies of the Royal Marines must be accepted. To do otherwise is folly.

What is this in the gash can, Sharpe?” asks the instructor (a gash can is a shallow chrome garbage can used in barrack rooms).

“It’s garbage, Sergeant,” replies Sharpe.

“Give me 20 good ones (push-ups), Sharpe. Now,

what is this in the gash

can?”

Hiring and

Selection Board

Fall 1988

The Student Union is accepting job applications for the follow-

ing positions: 1. CIMN Assistant Manager

2. CIMN Ad Sales Manager 3. Panther Lounge Bartender 4. Yearbook Production Editor

5. Chief Returning Officer 6. Student Judicial Committee

$40.00 per week

Commission

$4.25 per hour

To be announced

Chairperson, Ist year representative, 2nd year representative,

3rd year representative, student at large.

7. Social Committee Chairperson and Social Committee mem-

bers.

For information about the above positions and to pick up job applications please drop into the Student Union Building Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 4:00pm. Complete on application per posi- tion. Application Deadline Friday, November 5, 1988 at 4:00pm.

ay, 62)

(Alan Sharpe is a second-year student in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Toronto. He joined the Royal Marines at age 16 and served nine years, including two tours of duty in Northern Ireland and active service in the Falkland Islands-Malvinas war.)

“Oh, it’s gash, Sergeant,”’ says Sharpe, panting. ;

“And what is it doing in the gash can, Sharpe?”

This is the puzzling part. ‘‘Well,”’ says Sharpe, his mind racing, “‘it’s gash . . . so I put it in... the gash can, Sergeant.”

“We don’t put gash in the gash can, Sharpe. It has to be gleaming-spankers- clean every time I walk into this room; do you understand?”

“Yes Sergeant,” says Sharpe, lying.

Eventually, the recruit understands that his life is not his own anymore. He

moves closer to becoming oe 7

no longer thinks like an autonomous individual but like a Royal Marine.

By deciding to stay, the recruit now identifies more with the Royal Marines than with civilian life. He calls those out of uniform “dumb civwvies,” calls a night on the town a “run-ashore”’, and when going out with his buddies (“oppos’’) to meet women (‘‘parties’”’) he talks not of picking them up but of “going trapping”.

He no longer just dresses and talks like a Royal Marine, he begins to feel like one.

Upon completing training, the Royal Marine is posted to a commando unit of 800 men where he generally serves as a rifleman in a section of eight. The language no longer serves to shape him but to keep him apart from civilians and other services.

In the Falklands, he dehumanizes the Argentine enemy by saying he is going to “frag some spics’”’ with fragmentation grenades. In Northern Ireland, when an

. IRA terrorist blows himself up, he calls

ita “home goal”, after the soccer phrase for players who score into their own net by mistake.

But unlike defense intellectuals and nuclear war strategists, the Royal Marine uses little abstraction to distance himself from the reality of war.

He refers to enemy gun positions as

» being ‘‘destroyed by friendly (his)

artillery fire,” not as having been taken out. When artillery falls on the ground, he does not call the spread of bombs the footprint but ‘‘the killing area’’. Inno- cent civilians killed in the line of fire aren’t collateral damage, they are ‘‘civ- ilian casualties.”

While he is in the Corps, the Royal Marine’s language makes him feel part of a small, tightly-knit community of like-minded men. They dress, act and think the same. He is part of the team. He travels the world. He is paid well. He is admired by his parents, respected by other armed services and feared by his enemies — as long as he remains “inside,” walking the walk and talking the talk.

To most, leaving the Corps, or ‘‘get- ting outside”’, is unpleasant. Back in civilian life, the ex-Royal Marine begins putting his feet on the floor, not the deck, and starts dating women, not trapping girls.

All ex-Royal Marines quickly stop * using the old language. But none, at least none very quickly, can stop think- ing the way they used to, for they have mastered the language and the language has mastered them.

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