Royal Marines Commando School

[FrankelandFilly]

Anyone else watching?

BIL is an ex-marine and he's told me some of the stuff they got up to

See you all again next week!

See you all again next week!

STOP, I think they meant they are doing voluntarily rather than actually being volunteers. (I may be wrong!)

Yep you are right- i was being thick

Yes- I was the term as in 'a volunteer military force' as opposed to 'a conscript force.' Can you imagine outing up with that and not even getting paid .

The thing with RM training or paratroopers is the training is all about mental robustness. Physical endurance is essential but it's the mental robustness they really do push for.

They treat them like they do to basically see who will break, at what point. They also want them to earn their beret, it means so much to them because they worked bloody hard for it more so than some other regiments.

Watched this with DP (former Marine).
He moaned how standards have slipped.
Funny how he never lifts the iron at home anymore.....

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I just read a promo article for the series. Apparently they have a psychotherapist on camp to help the recruits that are struggling mentally. He's known as The Nod Whisperer (new recruits are known as "nods" due to their tendency to fall asleep during lectures in the early weeks)

DH and I watched this last night. I really enjoyed it. Neither of us have many military friends/family so it was a real eye-opener.

We were at them all lined up in the nude to go to bed, and I was that they had a live demonstration of how to clean themselves.

My favourite bit was when they were having their kit inspection and they were all killing themselves laughing behind the Corporal's back, and then he turned around and I just caught sight of a little smile on his lips too, before he managed to get himself under control to bollock them all some more. Haha!

The only person I know who went into the military was super disorganised and chaotic, and is now amazingly clean and tidy. I am a great believer in the way that all the different branches of the military teach personal discipline. Could do with it myself.

The Corporals know what it's like, they've been through it all too. They'll all be having a good laugh about the new recruits antics back in the Mess.

I think we should all have a marine giving us a live demonstration of how to shower

Yes that Cpl definitely had to rein a smile in before going back into bollocking mode.

Yes that Cpl definitely had to rein a smile in before going back into bollocking mode.

Much like me with my two unruly dcs sometimes it's really hard not to just give in and collapse into fits of laughter.

And yes to having a marine giving us a shower demo!

Not to rub it in but I get to have a got 20something 6ft3 paratrooper give me a shower a demonstration whenever I want to sneak in to the bathroom and perv, funny how I always need to brush my teeth when DP is in the shower

I do feel. for the guy dobbed for the shower experience though, bet he's thinking great, why me? Haha

Exp was pretty fit but he was no marine.

Watching it on catchup later - just for the ironing tips, of course.

Yes those ironing tips are a must have educational experience!! Haha

DH was all set to join the marines until we met. I know he'll always wonder what if and watches it with a fondness and certain sadness. I watch it through my hippy, anti-establishment, pacifist goggles. We see it very differently. Little things like the ingrained homophobia make me v uncomfortable. In fact most of it I struggle with but so much of it was sadly unsurprising.

I did raise an eyebrow at the shower demonstration but DH pointed out that not only is it necessary to teach such basic skills, the chap demonstrating is a marine and therefore won't give a shiny shit about being in the buff next to the others.

Froggy's accent was the best bit.

I saw a bit of this. How on earth can you get to their age and need to be taught how to have a shower? I also found it a bit worrying that these are people who are going to be expected to do difficult and dangerous stuff and yet most of them are incapable of remembering a sentence they've been asked to repeat.

holmes the cpl said that they take them right back to basics to teach them all from scratch how the marines need them to be. It's not about them not knowing how to shower, it's about them all doing exactly the same thing for exactly the same length of time with exactly the same equipment and methods so that when it comes to 'real' marine business they are all working from exactly the same hymnsheet on every single detail. They need the predictability of knowing exactly what the guy next to them is going to do and that needs to be across the board on every single detail. It has to be habit in every act they do.

I'm a health professional and believe me a lot of adults have very poor personal hygiene.

And i guess there is also the fact that infection prevention is very important. If some guy isnt washing himself properly and gets a cut/wound while out somewhere remote there is a huge risk of infection which could completely compromise the entire group/troop( what are they called?) not only would they be a man down needing medical assistance, they'd also be men down escorting him to that assistance or even having to call off whatever excercise they're on.

Sadly, yes some of them need to be taught basic hygiene.

They're split into "companies" if memory serves correctly DiaDuit, and yes it's all about making sure you can look after yourself out in the field and not be a burden to your comrades. Like the corporal said, if they can't keep themselves clean then how do you know they are keeping their weapon clean?