On Pendulums and Priorities.

There’s a story in the news today about an incident at the London Olympics.

The company that was commissioned to provide security screwed up badly and failed to recruit enough personnel, so the government had to step in and allocate troops to cover the gaps. Yesterday, one of the soldiers was ‘verbally abused’ by one of the private security guards, and the company is now conducting an investigation. They say the culprit will be disciplined.

Well, I accept that abuse in any form isn’t nice. But this is life, you know? Soldiers are tough people who get verbally abused routinely by NCOs in training because that’s an integral part of military culture. The soldier involved has probably done a tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq, or at least been prepared for such an assignment. I somehow can’t imagine that he was quaking in his boots at being ‘verbally abused’ by a civilian security guard at the London Olympics. I’m more inclined to think that the guard was lucky to have escaped without at least a broken nose.

Does a soldier really need a nanny shaking her walking stick at the naughty man who insulted him? Aren’t we becoming just a bit too prissy about this sort of thing these days?

Meanwhile, the government continues to decline a proper, impartial investigation into the highly suspicious deaths at Deepcut Barracks some years ago. That sort of thing gets swept under the carpet.