Disclaimer : Long post about largely military specific things ahead. You have been warned.
Over the years I have made an informal study of the way different Military Intelligence units form a unique gestalt personality. Oh sure there are some commonalities shared between different M.I. Units across the globe but each has a different flavor much like the
UNIX’s do.
Most of the units I have been in will slowly evolve their personalities over time as new personnel are added. On the whole though I find that the incoming individual ends up changing to a far larger degree than the unit does.
Military Intelligence is comprised largely of geeks, nerds, and unclassifiable social rejects. Most of us were selected from the Army recruiting pool by dint of our I.Q. scores or our ability in a particular area of study. Therefore Intel peer pressure is an odd beast and it is this beast that causes the newly arrived individuals to change. Our version of peer pressure rarely involves any direct confrontation at all. After all, we are the kids who were picked on through most of our school careers and possibly even in Basic Training. We have learned the art of confrontation avoidance at the doctoral level.
When someone arrives in a strategic M.I. unit who is far from the above mold, (say they came from a combat arms unit where confrontation, bluster, and bellowing are the norm) the unit struggles invisibly against them. This was demonstrated once again at our morning excruciation session.
We have in our unit a new SSG… SSG Bull. SSG Bull was asked to briefly fill in for our normal Inquisitor SGT Runsalot. He had never done PT with our group before and so was somewhat ignorant of how things go. Our normal routine is to start with some simple streatches and warm-up exercises before the real pain begins. During this time we are very informal chatting quietly amongst ourselves in between the various pose changes. SSG Bull came from a unit where every aspect of PT is very structured. His version went a bit like this :
Bull : Platoon Atten…shun! (BTW we are not a platoon either)
Bull: The first exercise will be the Stationary Run!
Us: ….
Bull: You are supposed to say it after I do! The Stationary Run!
Us: (mumbling) stationary run….
(several other warm ups in the above vein followed)
Bull: The next stretching exercise will be The Overhead Arm-Pull! Follow me!
Us: ….
Bull: You are supposed to say Lead the Way!
Us: (even more half-assedly) lead the way…
(more stretches with the same script)
Bull: The first exercise will be the Push-up! In-Cadence! Exercise!
So we do our little push-ups in syncronicity. For those of you who have not served allow to me explain that "in-cadence" means that the leader counts the motions of the exercise and everyone does them at the same at the same pace for the same number of repetitions. This has some fitness value as some will get a good push-up workout. Others however will simply become totally unmotivated as they have to stop long before the other members of the group do. The Army has been actively trying to get away from mindless cadence driven flailings like this for years. Unfortunately some of our movie driven brainiacs regard it as some sort of military totemic ritual.
All through this little bit of morning stupidity SSG Bull seemed to be perplexed at our lack of enthusiastic responses. I believe he was a bit miffed. Fortunately out normal dominatrix came back at this point and immediately moved to take back control of the group. During the course of the hand off of the formation between her and SSG Bull there arose a very minor dispute over who should stand in what position as he relinquished charge of the formation to her. When it was not resolve in that millisecond SSG Bull simply said, "Whatever" and walked away without actually giving her back her formation. I know all this must be very jargonistic for he civvies out there but let me assure you, no matter who was right or wrong about the standing positions, it is the height of rudeness to just walk away muttering under your breath in front of a formation of the other sergeant’s subordinates.
SSG Bull left our area and went over to the other group to bitch a bit over the altercation and our lack of "Hooah-ness". Finding roughly zero sympathy there he eventually came back and sullenly exercised in the rear of our formation for a good 10 minutes. After that he seemed to go out of his way to try and become involved in the mild banter and discussion that was ongoing in our group. He even went up to hold SGT Runsalot’s feet during our sit-ups.
With no confrontation whatsoever our small group had already forced changes to his leadership style. While he may never be as "pogue-ish" as we geeks are I guarantee that by the time he leaves this unit he will have become far more like us than we will have become like him.