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I have copied below two interesting views on frontline experience in Iraq which show up how important Esprit de Corps is to a fighting unit.
The first below is from an older male soldier in a very large unit that recruits from various catchement areas and the second is from a young woman from the Royal Anglians which recruits mainly from a well-defined geographical area- East Anglia.
Note how the oldier soldier makes heavy going of his experience while the young girl makes light of hers. Probably not co-incidentally, the young lady received an award for individual bravery. This young girl reminds me of the competitive and "can do" spirit that prevailed within the Rhodesian Police and Army in my day.
1. Older Soldier.
I was unfortunate enough to have witnessed an American Humvee travelling directly behind us destroyed in a device which our ECM suppressed but initiated on their vehicle resulting in 2 fatalities.
As for the heat - it was a war in Iraq - cold weather kit was hardly on the packing list and they don't make armoured refrigerators.
There is much more of this in the same vein.
Now Compare:
Katrina Hodge, 22, certainly doesn’t look as if she’s wrestled an Iraqi to the floor with her bare hands. In fact, in a black silk dress and kitten heels at the Johannesburg Hyatt in South Africa, her billet last week for the Miss World finals, the current Miss England looks as if she might have difficulty shutting down a stroppy chihuahua. She’s not even sure she likes the word “wrestled”. “Pleeeeease don’t use it,” she squeals. “The word I’ve been given permission to use by the army is ‘used reasonable force’. ‘Wrestled’ makes me sound like a brute!”
Anyway, said wrestling happened in 2005, on tour in Iraq, during a routine search in Basra, because Lance-Corporal Hodge is not only an international beauty queen, but she is also a serving soldier based in Aldershot, Surrey. At barely 18, she had just been sent to fight in the Middle East, an experience she found “hot, very dusty, a challenge which made me grow up very fast”. Especially when, driving along a road one day, “our vehicle was unexpectedly involved in a road traffic accident”, she recalls. “We rolled over three times but when we came to, an Iraqi had taken our weapons.”
She promptly retrieved the weapons and, after “giving him a whack” and restraining him — La Senza underwear, since you ask — she saved the lives of her comrades, an act of bravery that earned her a commendation.
“To me, it was nothing special. It’s the job. The training,” she says now. Actually, she’s not naturally aggressive — “No, not at all!” she trills — which suddenly makes me wonder whether she’s killed anyone. She can’t go into detail, she says. What does she feel like when she fires a gun, then? Whoo-hoo? “I don’t want to answer that either,” she says. “But try paintballing. It’s just the same.”
She admits that she started enjoying Iraq only “towards the end”, but to be honest I don’t think dusty, stressful places are entirely her thing because when I ask her where else she’d like to serve, she replies, “anywhere with a beach and plenty of shopping”, which doesn’t sound quite like Afghanistan to me. Anyway, she says she’ll go there if she’s required, “but obviously I’m not desperate”, besides, it is not a “war”, she says. “It’s peace-keeping. Doesn’t she ever get frightened? “No, because it’s what I’m trained to do. I’ve always been a determined, decisive character.”
So is she a feminist? “No, I’m not. A lot of people think I am because of what I do. I’m very girl power, but I’m not a feminist as such. I don’t feel I have to prove myself as a female, but I enjoy challenging stereotypes.” Besides, in 10 years’ time, she hopes to “get a house, maybe married with kids”, she says. I ask her if she has a boyfriend and she says: “I like to keep my personal life private. I don’t like to comment about partners,” so
I ask her if she has a girlfriend instead, and she screams with laughter, squealing: “I am straight! Very straight! I realise I used the word ‘partner’ there. Ha-ha-ha.”
She is now negotiating a six-month career break so she can tour the country as Miss England, spreading world peace. After that, she’ll go back to the army. She’s in, she says, for the long run. “I still enjoy my job so I’m going to carry on doing it as long as I enjoy it, up to 22 years.” Still, something tells me that this girl is, at heart, more of a beauty queen than a soldier. When I ask her if she worries about getting injured, she says: “What do you mean, break a nail? Well, obviously I’d have to cope with it.”
I just love that -- "what do you mean, break a nail".
I think it is more than one up for the Royal Anglians- I know who I would prefer to be in a tight corner with.
Tim Horgan
The first below is from an older male soldier in a very large unit that recruits from various catchement areas and the second is from a young woman from the Royal Anglians which recruits mainly from a well-defined geographical area- East Anglia.
Note how the oldier soldier makes heavy going of his experience while the young girl makes light of hers. Probably not co-incidentally, the young lady received an award for individual bravery. This young girl reminds me of the competitive and "can do" spirit that prevailed within the Rhodesian Police and Army in my day.
1. Older Soldier.
I was unfortunate enough to have witnessed an American Humvee travelling directly behind us destroyed in a device which our ECM suppressed but initiated on their vehicle resulting in 2 fatalities.
As for the heat - it was a war in Iraq - cold weather kit was hardly on the packing list and they don't make armoured refrigerators.
There is much more of this in the same vein.
Now Compare:
Katrina Hodge, 22, certainly doesn’t look as if she’s wrestled an Iraqi to the floor with her bare hands. In fact, in a black silk dress and kitten heels at the Johannesburg Hyatt in South Africa, her billet last week for the Miss World finals, the current Miss England looks as if she might have difficulty shutting down a stroppy chihuahua. She’s not even sure she likes the word “wrestled”. “Pleeeeease don’t use it,” she squeals. “The word I’ve been given permission to use by the army is ‘used reasonable force’. ‘Wrestled’ makes me sound like a brute!”
Anyway, said wrestling happened in 2005, on tour in Iraq, during a routine search in Basra, because Lance-Corporal Hodge is not only an international beauty queen, but she is also a serving soldier based in Aldershot, Surrey. At barely 18, she had just been sent to fight in the Middle East, an experience she found “hot, very dusty, a challenge which made me grow up very fast”. Especially when, driving along a road one day, “our vehicle was unexpectedly involved in a road traffic accident”, she recalls. “We rolled over three times but when we came to, an Iraqi had taken our weapons.”
She promptly retrieved the weapons and, after “giving him a whack” and restraining him — La Senza underwear, since you ask — she saved the lives of her comrades, an act of bravery that earned her a commendation.
“To me, it was nothing special. It’s the job. The training,” she says now. Actually, she’s not naturally aggressive — “No, not at all!” she trills — which suddenly makes me wonder whether she’s killed anyone. She can’t go into detail, she says. What does she feel like when she fires a gun, then? Whoo-hoo? “I don’t want to answer that either,” she says. “But try paintballing. It’s just the same.”
She admits that she started enjoying Iraq only “towards the end”, but to be honest I don’t think dusty, stressful places are entirely her thing because when I ask her where else she’d like to serve, she replies, “anywhere with a beach and plenty of shopping”, which doesn’t sound quite like Afghanistan to me. Anyway, she says she’ll go there if she’s required, “but obviously I’m not desperate”, besides, it is not a “war”, she says. “It’s peace-keeping. Doesn’t she ever get frightened? “No, because it’s what I’m trained to do. I’ve always been a determined, decisive character.”
So is she a feminist? “No, I’m not. A lot of people think I am because of what I do. I’m very girl power, but I’m not a feminist as such. I don’t feel I have to prove myself as a female, but I enjoy challenging stereotypes.” Besides, in 10 years’ time, she hopes to “get a house, maybe married with kids”, she says. I ask her if she has a boyfriend and she says: “I like to keep my personal life private. I don’t like to comment about partners,” so
I ask her if she has a girlfriend instead, and she screams with laughter, squealing: “I am straight! Very straight! I realise I used the word ‘partner’ there. Ha-ha-ha.”
She is now negotiating a six-month career break so she can tour the country as Miss England, spreading world peace. After that, she’ll go back to the army. She’s in, she says, for the long run. “I still enjoy my job so I’m going to carry on doing it as long as I enjoy it, up to 22 years.” Still, something tells me that this girl is, at heart, more of a beauty queen than a soldier. When I ask her if she worries about getting injured, she says: “What do you mean, break a nail? Well, obviously I’d have to cope with it.”
I just love that -- "what do you mean, break a nail".
I think it is more than one up for the Royal Anglians- I know who I would prefer to be in a tight corner with.
Tim Horgan
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