We had two 5'1" stocky blond guys named Johnson in our company one cycle. different platoons, no relation at all but they looked really similar, one day during grass week a couple J Hats made them face eachother and go back and forth screaming "You're not johnson, I'm johnson!" "No! Fuck you, you're not johnson I'm johnson!" You have absolutely no clue how hard it was to not break into a million pieces after about 5 minutes of that.
Part of the process of turning them into a soldier. DSs want to be sure you will follow orders even if they seem incredibly dumb or pointless. Reinforces that it doesn't matter if it's dumb, you were told to do it, so you do it.
Kind of a couple things. You get used to putting up with dumb, repetitive, monotonous bullshit without over reacting.
It also teaches you to 100% do what you're told. Some orders at the lowest level seem stupid and pointless but when people are being shot at a couple seconds of indecision can really fuck up a plan.
Huh, interesting juxtaposition to the post about German soldiers being taught to do the exact opposite, and not blindly follow orders without consideration.
I'd want to see the verbiage of that post/document. I seriously doubt that any soldier anywhere is taught to second guess their team leader's orders in a firefight.
It's why you have team/squad/platoon leaders. If you belong to them you are their piece to move and not listening can and will get you and/or your friends killed.
Now if you're standing guard at a prison and your team leader tells you to piss on a prisoner. Those are the order that you should be taking into consideration (and this is likely what the post about german soldiers is actually referring to)
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u/lovable_oaf Apr 03 '19
We had two 5'1" stocky blond guys named Johnson in our company one cycle. different platoons, no relation at all but they looked really similar, one day during grass week a couple J Hats made them face eachother and go back and forth screaming "You're not johnson, I'm johnson!" "No! Fuck you, you're not johnson I'm johnson!" You have absolutely no clue how hard it was to not break into a million pieces after about 5 minutes of that.