Lessons in the field of dreams

An entire platoon of trainee British Royal Marines have been forced to pay for the sins of a handful of compatriots who were caught red handed pilfering from their camp canteen.

- Ken Rogers

It seems that a dozen or so recruits, training to become the disciplined commandos of tomorrow, were consistently putting goods through the self-service checkout without scanning them.

I assume that stealing at whatever level in the military can usually have just one outcome... a court martial.

In this case, the Commanding Officer chose instead to punish his entire group of over 400, ordering them to crawl through a gruelling 'mud run' that many military top brass thought had been abolished.

The incident is now closed, the C.O. declaring that because his men train as one and fight as one, such punishment reinforces their cohesion and unity.

Have you ever willingly taken a punishment for something you did not do? I can't speak for today's modern generation, but this Marines story had me reflecting on my 1960s school days.

While at Walton's former Evered High, I regularly attended a popular summer break in the Isle of Man, where up to 100 of us, aged 12 to 17, would camp in a large field in the delightful village of Kirkmichael, with a backdrop of impressive hills.