Esprit de corps

I got this from Donovan's place, where I strongly suspect John got it from a former Strath of our mutual acquaintance who used to have posting privileges around here but never used them, preferring instead to e-mail post ideas to me, his personal secretary.

I long suspected this was because he was a Luddite, but I'm now coming to the realization he's simply slack and idle in his old age. Correction: in his very old age.

Thus ends the needling.

Here's a snippet of the story he sent along, which goes to show that esprit de corps manifests itself in myriad and creative ways:

When we arrived, MSG was still in the process of being established with support facilities and tents still being erected. In short order, however, Admin Coy from the 2 R22eR had the camp set up to the SSM’s satisfaction and after some minor tweaking, he began to re-focus his thoughts. While the SSM began plotting, the remainder of the Sqn began its time with the Combat Team Commanders Course. They conducted defensive and offensive operations that included breaching with the engineers as demonstrated by C/S 32C commanded by MCpl Gregory C. Moon.

The SSM, now free to plot, began to focus on two things: How can I make more money for the Sqn Canteen and what tricks can I play on the young officers? He quickly fixed the first issue by offering our canteen services to the remainder of the Battle Group (BG). Within one day, he sold all his stock minus a strategic reserve of pepperoni sticks and Gatorade. Now, the second point was a little trickier. The OC, Major John Cochrane, warned the SSM to be good and not to play tricks on his young Troop Leaders. However, he never said anything about the new Administration Officer (AO), Lieutenant (Lt) Mike Kaye.

...

It was kind of surprising that no mention of this incident was every made to the other officers by the AO. I guess he believed that this will be kept within the Sqn and no mention will be made. But, thanks to the World Wide Web, we are broadcasting this out to the Regimental Family so that everyone will know, because we just can’t keep this to ourselves...

You can read the rest here.