Life and Times on the Army

What is the Army all about? Why does a person join it? What motivates them and to what purpose are their actions? Well, to a person who is of the eligibility age these questions might have various good and perfectly straight forward answers. But to a very young person, who has been (fortunate enough) to be immersed in Army life and is of the philosophical bent of mind these questions trigger very complex responses. The following is a record of those responses.

The Brits call them "the Services", Indians copy that. In short, this is what it is all about. Allow some further explanation. Does a person join the Army because they are of a violent nature and like killing, fighting and destruction? Could be likely true for a good number of those actively joining and maybe rightly so, a job which fits their nature, a perfectly good match! Another easy answer would be it is just another job, also very likely but let us be more positive and say that there are Good motivations, in the true sense, for going forth!

Another popular reason could be that, well, it is "popular" thing to do! People join for the "life" and experiences. The whitewash and ribbons, the ideas of propah gallantry and manners, the adventure and the life style. The most drastically right answer would be that the people joining up are rightists or to put the mild sauce on it, nationalists!

The only fight truly worth fighting is for the truth and for the right cause. If that is indeed the fight then the objective is overall public welfare (and peace on earth). Fanciful ideas all right, but not malicious falsehoods and misunderstandings such are propagated to create warfare. Europe is egalitarian, only because they have been the genesis of great technological progress and also the greatest wars, both on scales never seen before and in the latter case hopefully not ever to be seen. The authorities in charge of things in General have their populations fighting and dying for what purpose exactly? Empire, I believe. Worth it? Totally not.

The Army is a practical and useful force. Mostly created on European models and retained as their colonial occupation forces but it needs to adapt with the times. The only proper Army is a revolutionary one. Unfortunately, colonies did not adapt and remained loyal to the past of their institutions. An air force pilot in India has to train as a regular army cadet in the NDA for three years before specializing in their specific trade.

Colonial armies were big, expensive structures for the purpose of empire. Poor colonies maintained their past glory for poorly defined purpose. National pride maybe. Where as the overall life style of the masses remianed deprived. To improve that maybe the service we require most. Security over kill is not a good idea, at least not of the imperial hangover variety we inherited.

People get fanciful Ideas all the time. We should fight ok, but ban the most fun weapons like them chemical and biological ones, like Diana did to the land mines. Maybe we should ban the shooting weapons and go back to sticks and stones, after all these are scary enough for the Army in Kashmir.

Terrorism is a poor man's war. There is the frontal all put assault like in "A farewell to arms", the most correct way to go about the fighting game. Guerrilla warfare is for the losers who attack to harass, knowing outright victory is hopeless. At least the Great War taught the scorched earth policy by finishing off with direct civilian attacks from 1000 bomber raids to 1000 ton bombs.