What a tangled web we weave...

I shall absolutely be undone if there are more days and nights like these which try not only the spirit, but wracking the soul as we share the pain of others going through a struggle, the pain of which one cannot lift a finger to ease.

I am tired to hearing stories of how the old army used to be - of countless days and nights of mean fun, some boyish and others of the ugly spirit that causes hazing. Some people believe that a perfect warrior is created in a bond of kinship of like spirits; who must endure a rite of fellowship and whose bravery and aggressive demeanor must be worn not only on the sleeve for all to see, but displayed regularly lest a softer side be betyayed as weakness. The people undoubtedly believe that pure loyalty regardless of rhyme or reason is more important that right, or doing the right thing. I have seen this thing first hand and the work it fashions - not without purpose nor good of its own, but I fear that the good that it does produce is overcast by the darkness that it brings to what is light in our spirit. The need for acceptance in a male-cultured, male-structured environment is not new, nor is it isolated to one race or country or region. But it is distince to one culture - the culture of the warrior. I am not acquainted with female-warrior societies, so I have to reference point, and therefore, I am de facto talking about male warrior culture. I must needs talk in generalities for to speak in specifics will betray the truth and I fear that not all are ready and willing to accept it wholesale, regardless of what they may like to hear themselves say.

I am tired of hearing about what used or did not used to be done on the floor of the Sergeants' mess, or which bimbo or trench trollop did what with which and to whom. I would much rather hear about how you intend to make this all better. I want to hear about how you intend to bring this Regiment forward in though and action, to be better integrated (no, we are not) with the community at lrage wich mostly is indifferent, if not fearful and distasteful of our presence and existence. This is born of ignorance partly, but also of a stylized recasting of our image by the media, in literature, and by what we see and hear. So much is weighed upon our first impressions. I fear that the army does not leave good ones. I want to hear how you intend to take this Regiment forward into a new era of understanding and being closer with our communities by participating and become a live and active boon to our surround, and not a drain. I want to progress, not be dragged into the 1950s and 60s when things were remenesciently nice for you and when you were comfortable talking about women as if they were dirt or pieces of meant or reproductive organs on a pair of legs. Those days are gone and good riddance to bad rubbish. It is precisely this persistent hanging on to the ill-starred past that surely must have brought about our unhappy state of recent events. I will not get into details for I don't know all that has occured. But I cannot simply stand around for leadership is wanted. Real leadership. The officer corps must do something. We cannot sit idly by and hope that it either goes away or worse, is not important enough for us to do something that displays for all to see and hear, what we are truly made of. I fear that the senior leadership is too much of the old school to do the right thing or with enough vigour that the question is no longer in doubt - that the officers are for good and right and a sense of decency, not the crass and low-born animal reaction, to be accepted and a desire to bring about the ways of yesteryear a reality! How can it be? If that course of events are allowed to manifest than I shall indeed be aggrieved to call myself an officer of any worth in this Regiment. I am willing to see that justice will take it's due course as it should, but that it is not trifled with.

It is infuriating not to know details for the mind asks over and over, like a neophyte at school on the first day, but I am tired of fruitless quests for right when it all seems to and too readily given up for the temporary sin of being acceptable for now. Have we come so far from our beginnings and yet learnt so little? Can this really be the end of so proud a battalion? It is perhaps a little due to that pride which helped foster so mean a spirit that the evil dared rear it's head in the sinful thought that perhaps some people aren't welcome in the battalion. We will have fallen into our own devices if we fall back upon the erroneous belief of darwin - that we should be kept busy fighting one another, when the true evil is that much harder to see and find.

I was ready to step up to the plate and speak to the CO, but it seems that under the guise of talking about his own departure, Rob has beaten me to it again. I was quite ready and willing to put my career in the reserve into my own hands and speak up for what I hold true, but well, Rob's a good man in his own right as well and I am thankful for him. I shall be deeply annoyed when and if he goes.

O, what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive. - Sir Walter Scott (1808) Marmion