"When shit hits the fan, you get Lima company."
- A friend who went through Lima foundation term
I'm not one who really listens to other's opinions and makes judgements immediately. I'll take them into consideration and see for myself. But its only day one and what my friend said seems about right.
Not going to delve into too much details but the inefficiency here reminds me of my BMT days, all the rush to wait and wait to rush. Trust me that happens everywhere in the army but some places take it to the extreme. What I found particularly even more striking though is that it is not just the command team but the cadets that were from the company during foundation. And I suppose for an entire group of cadets to behave like that meant that this is the culture, this is the way they were conditioned to become. It seems almost as if they were afraid.
And ironically for a place that seemed to offer so much promise in terms of liberty to let us plan things out ourselves, people seem to still remain so inflexible, so rigid. I suppose the liberty's an illusion, its really much more constrained.
And the people here feel so, unapproachable. In fact even more so than BMT. At least back then the section commanders were approachable. Here it feels like a 'you leave me alone I leave you alone, you screw up you pay for it' kind of atmosphere. There that lack of a fun vibe too, something which the people of 3rd and 5th coy had. Here it seems so robotic. Don't ask, just do, don't screw up and let everything be nice.
I really wouldn't mind that much going through infantry professional term with Foxtrot. It would actually be a pretty interesting experience. I'm concerned that perhaps Lima runs on fear rather than inspiration.
Today, watching the combined arms term cadets marching around in their blue berets and gathering in their pt kits (which came in all sorts of colours), I couldn't help but feel a little bit of bitterness.
Still, it is only day one. Things don't look good for now but I'll continue to wait and see, hoping that perhaps it will get better. After all, I have not seen the full picture yet, only glimpses and hopefully the contents of this book is better than its cover.
P.S. I also have guard duty this saturday. This one isn't the company's fault but its pretty messed up. For the next month or so, only professional term (which is just three companies) cadets will be doing guard duty. Life really does suck right now.
P.P.S But I'll give credit where its due, PC's a pretty good fella.
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