This story is down to some research I did into Army background dressing for 'The Big Brother Hole' and some 'officers/soldiers divide' thoughts that just wouldn't go away.
Much of the research is from Wiki, the British Army website and many like it, and in particular a cracker called the Army Rumour Service and the conversations and 'banter' that goes on with that site.
When I was writing it, I had one face in my head, a real person, a real tall person and also a real soldier, a real hero - someone I'm proud to call a friend, and to whom it is most respectfully dedicated,
To Lieutenant C...
*****
Since I was hit puberty people have called me a giant, and I'm a female one at that - I joined the army straight from University and it was fine, right up until the second I told anyone my surname, they giggled
Major, Linette Major - quite a boring name unless you want to join the army, Lieutenant Major, Captain Major, God forbid I ever became Major Major. It was the running joke of my whole career, and everyone thought it was 'just the biggest hoot!'
"Oh I say, Second Lieutenant Major, bet that's confusing for you dear," said the very senior officer.
Yes Colonel, it is Colonel, Ha ha Colonel, Fuck off Colonel.
The other great joke of my life was my height, I'm still one of two girls that I know of that are over 6 feet tall. I'm six foot four, and it was the bane of my life as I just kept on growing despite people telling me that once I hit puberty it would all be fine, but it wasn't.
"How tall are you?" people would ask me with a smile, "What's the weather like up there shorty?" They'd chuckle, "I bet people say that to you all the time," said everyone shorter than me.
"Yes short arse, Ha ha short arse, fuck off short arse.
I joined the army because I vainly thought that the tall jokes would be beyond the serious military, but no. It carried on.
On the combat phase of our initial training and I found that no one wanted to be my 'buddy' - why? We had to dig trenches, six feet long by three feet wide by five feet deep, or six feet in my case.
One of the other cadets had been in the Army Reserve and we all kind of listened to him because he had done lots of these before as a private soldier. He was the same age but had that 'been there, done that' attitude to him and we all kind of listened.
"Trench digging is a pain," he said, "especially if you get stuck with Major as your trench mate." Everyone laughed. I tried not to let them see how hurt I was that all of them, this bunch of friends I'd thought I could count on to back me up, laughed at me and not one of them came within ten feet of me as we stopped in our platoon area for the night.
There were chuckles as the gang paired off and I just looked around as even the girls I was closest to kept their distance.
"You'll have to be a miner to dig a trench with Major," said a wag.
The corporal found the smart arse and he found himself as my trench mate for the night. I was embarrassed and tried to apologise.
"Don't apologise Officer Cadet Major," said a stern voice from the Sergeant Instructor, a rough and tough, hook nosed hooligan from The Parachute Regiment, "If he had less of a gob on him, he'd have less digging to do."
The regular army non-commissioned instructors at Sandhurst were clever, funny but not abusive; after all, we would one day be commissioned officers and they'd go back to their various Corps and Regiments and still be Sergeants and warrant officers and could bump into us.
Sergeant Major Bacon, a giant from one of the Guards Regiments that was taller than me and was no stranger to people taking the piss out of his name. He's nicknames went from 'Kevin', through to the favoured 'Smokey' at best to 'Eggie' at worst, but was the Academy Sergeant Major, the senior instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, so it was only ever to his back and from a distance.
He took me to one side following some piss taking in the queue when we were being measured for our parade uniforms and for our passing out ('Major's skirt is going to be expensive - hope they have enough material for the rest of us!'). I grimaced, it had ceased to be in the slightest bit funny some months before and I found I was the butt of all the jokes pretty much constantly and he heard it - again and stood over the offender and took her to task.
"Where do you get off talking about people's height Officer Cadet?," he snarled, looming over her by a good eighteen inches, "you're were obviously in the queue for a sense of humour when the height was be given out."
"Don't let the fuckers see you hurt Major," he said in all seriousness and mentioned that he had been in hearing distance after some light-hearted discussion turned nastier when a senior Officer Cadet had called me a freak when I told him that 'what's the weather like up there' wasn't funny, had never been funny and would never be funny.
"You do what I did, you take all that ridicule and that juvenile name calling shit and you grow a pair, and you suck it up. But you suck it up and you transmute it into straight up energy, happy that you'll climb higher and taller, and more fucking powerful than those fuckers who think they are comedians and having a teenagers giggle at your expense ever fucking will."
He snarled, I snarled.
