I don't know but I've been told
"This is not the military," she told the line of what she was thinking of as recruits, no matter their individual experience. It didn't matter any more, wasn't that what everyone kept saying about this place? "If this was the military, I or someone like me would have you all day, every day. So you might want to be glad this isn't the military." This was not a joke. It really, really wasn't. She started striding up and down the line, inspecting each person in turn. "Given that, you might be wondering why I've got you all standing at attention - although it's a rather sad approximation, in some cases stop slouching, recruit - as if it was. It's quite simple; if I cannot rely on you to do something as absolutely basic as stand still and upright when told, do you really think I'm going to put lives in your hands?
"This is not the eye-pee-dee. I could enumerate the differences, but right now the only one you need to worry about is this: their major function is patrol. Ours is crisis response. They walk, we run."
She stopped in her constant prowling. "So run. Three lines of five, form up behind me. You don't stop running till I stop running." Most of them should be in good enough shape that this shouldn't be the slightest bit of a problem, but she wasn't going to be too unreasonable right out of the gate. She had them do an easy two miles, didn't even time it. Then, with a certain degree of nostalgic delight that didn't make it to her face or voice, she had them drop and give her twenty.
As they did, she watched carefully, and when it became apparent which of them was going to finish first, she drifted over there. And when they started to get up, she very deliberately put her boot on their shoulder almost as soon as they'd started the movement. "What do you think you're doing?" She listened to the obvious response about having completed the reps, and said, almost sweetly, "I see. You've done your quota. Tell me, if you were in a firefight, would you put down your gun because you'd shot your share of the enemy, and then sit there smugly, waiting for your buddies to catch up? No? Could have fooled me. Keep going."
The boot stayed in place long enough to make the point, even after they'd resumed, and then she took it away. "Think that's unfair? Maybe next time you'll pay enough attention to your unit that you're not miles ahead." Her next was directed at the group at large. "That goes for all of you. None of you are done until all of you are done. That goes for every exercise. You fail, together. You succeed, together, but I'm not placing any bets on that. When you're done, sit-ups."
When they were done, sit-ups. She let them switch around and then started talking again. "This might seem pretty basic to some of you. It is pretty basic. Some of you have done all this before. Some of you might even think you're past all this. But most of you, I don't know how you were trained. I don't care. Some of you, I know how you were trained-" she fixed the people in question with momentary stares, "-but you could probably do with a refresher.
"More than that, you've never trained together. You're not here to be highly trained individuals collaborating. You're here to be a unit. So we start from scratch. You learn to do what someone else tells you and only what someone else tells you all over again, because I'm willing to bet a lot of you have forgotten how."
She was, it had to be said, more than happy to remind them. And she did, for the rest of the morning. Basic drills, all of them, because she certainly hadn't been lying: as far as she was concerned, her first priority was to make sure they could do things as simple as press-ups in unison.
And when the morning was done, she dismissed them to go home or perhaps mill about on the beach and chat, which was probably desirable even if she had no urge to take part. It would, in fact, probably be counterproductive. She moved a small distance away and set about making notes on a clipboard she'd obtained instead.
[ITF gathering post, set to Wednesday morning. More details in slated.]
"This is not the eye-pee-dee. I could enumerate the differences, but right now the only one you need to worry about is this: their major function is patrol. Ours is crisis response. They walk, we run."
She stopped in her constant prowling. "So run. Three lines of five, form up behind me. You don't stop running till I stop running." Most of them should be in good enough shape that this shouldn't be the slightest bit of a problem, but she wasn't going to be too unreasonable right out of the gate. She had them do an easy two miles, didn't even time it. Then, with a certain degree of nostalgic delight that didn't make it to her face or voice, she had them drop and give her twenty.
As they did, she watched carefully, and when it became apparent which of them was going to finish first, she drifted over there. And when they started to get up, she very deliberately put her boot on their shoulder almost as soon as they'd started the movement. "What do you think you're doing?" She listened to the obvious response about having completed the reps, and said, almost sweetly, "I see. You've done your quota. Tell me, if you were in a firefight, would you put down your gun because you'd shot your share of the enemy, and then sit there smugly, waiting for your buddies to catch up? No? Could have fooled me. Keep going."
The boot stayed in place long enough to make the point, even after they'd resumed, and then she took it away. "Think that's unfair? Maybe next time you'll pay enough attention to your unit that you're not miles ahead." Her next was directed at the group at large. "That goes for all of you. None of you are done until all of you are done. That goes for every exercise. You fail, together. You succeed, together, but I'm not placing any bets on that. When you're done, sit-ups."
When they were done, sit-ups. She let them switch around and then started talking again. "This might seem pretty basic to some of you. It is pretty basic. Some of you have done all this before. Some of you might even think you're past all this. But most of you, I don't know how you were trained. I don't care. Some of you, I know how you were trained-" she fixed the people in question with momentary stares, "-but you could probably do with a refresher.
"More than that, you've never trained together. You're not here to be highly trained individuals collaborating. You're here to be a unit. So we start from scratch. You learn to do what someone else tells you and only what someone else tells you all over again, because I'm willing to bet a lot of you have forgotten how."
She was, it had to be said, more than happy to remind them. And she did, for the rest of the morning. Basic drills, all of them, because she certainly hadn't been lying: as far as she was concerned, her first priority was to make sure they could do things as simple as press-ups in unison.
And when the morning was done, she dismissed them to go home or perhaps mill about on the beach and chat, which was probably desirable even if she had no urge to take part. It would, in fact, probably be counterproductive. She moved a small distance away and set about making notes on a clipboard she'd obtained instead.
[ITF gathering post, set to Wednesday morning. More details in slated.]