The other night we had no officers on parade so one of the A/sgts was sat in the COs chair and a cadet came in and saluted.
Jokingly we told the cadet that they had to ‘unsalute’.
Is there an official unsaluting procedure?
Say what? :ohmy:
You know, i was thinking the exact same thing when i read the topic title.
To the Op. No there isn’t. K?
Click.
Unlocked on request via PM.
Short way up, long way down?
That must have been some great persuading…perhaps they used the force!
it was my PM and any indication of force will be denied 
with regard to my addtions
i was told once, so confess i have no document or paragraph to quote, but when passing an Officer a Salute should be offered even if yours hands are full - carrying a box for instance.
the equivalent of an eyes left/right with a nod is deemed suitable.
a similar method if cycling passed an Officer walking towards you…
and in such case the Officer should reply with a full salute in recognition of the “un-salute”
these are two example occasions i was told where an Officer is offered a “salute” without actually throwing up a hand/arm
i’d love to know if the above can be confirmed by black and white, but that is my understandig based on my experience.
Is this what you mean?
[quote]6.
When the individual is not wearing head - dress or is carrying anything other than a weapon, which prevents saluting, the head is to be turned smartly towards the officer being passed. When stationary the individual is to stand to attention as the officer passes.[/quote]
It would be.
I am told (though not formally) that those actions are considered to be a full salute and should be returned as normal by the officer.
Granted, it is different from retracting a salute given in error, which is typically some form of grovelling and kowtowing
Well i know how to unsalute, with regards to my old warrant officer anyway, its simple run… far and fast before his boot catches up to you.
I believe they should be.
It’s effectively ‘compliments on the march’, the same as if an officer were being passed by a group of cadets or airmen and they were given eyes right or left.
OK, I’m being pedantic with the OP now, but if AP 818 describes the origins of saluting as follows:
[I]In origin, the salute with the hand, the Present Arms, and the salute with the sword were methods by which the person paying the compliment could show the person to whom that compliment was paid that no offence was meant. They are all gestures symbolic of loyalty and trust. Saluting represents the fundamental values of the Royal Air Force and it is the responsibility of all personnel to ensure that it is carried out correctly.[/I]
Would an un-salute the opposite of the above?
If so, I can think of several gestures that would show offence, and a lack of loyalty and trust!!
Going back to the beginning of the thread, you salute the commission not the person. There was no reason for the cadet to salute the A/Sgt which begs the question why isn’t he aware of this??
If we saluted the man or the woman, history would tell us that a lot of salutes to other objects had been wasted over the years.
I can think of at least three (actually, a lot more than three) salutes I needn’t have thrown up if I only needed to salute the person.
It is the commission from Her Majesty that is saluted.
Ah - the cadet did not salute the A/Sgt out of not knowing who to salute - it was more that the A/Sgt was sat at the CO’s desk. And the cadet expected the CO to be sat there.
Hope that clarifies things bitwise.
No, not really…
Cadets seem to suffer a form of ‘office blindness’.
Presumably ‘The office’ is a scary place and entering it removes from them the ability to distinguish rank.
They simply see human forms and salute them as a reflex action.
This condition has been known to affect not only properly trained cadets, but cadet NCOs on occasion also.
It also reminds me of a well-known retired VR(T) officer in our Wing who, as a CI, insisted that cadets salute his desk even when he wasn’t sat at it.
[Edited]
I was always under the impression that it was a human being that was granted a commission, not an inanimate object…
I think there does exist an option to salute people as a mark of respect, regardless of a commission. Victoria Cross recipients for example. Additionally, we salute war memorials, funeral processions and the cenotaph.
with regard to saluting non-officers. My squadron has been run by a WO for some time now. One problem which arose was how to replace the salute when he marches on parade. He jokingly gets round this by giving a scout salute and going ‘dib dib’…
We’ve discussed this before on here and saluting is indeed showing respect for someone. Many years ago, Gentlemen would remove their hats (formal parade programmes for spectators still have that) and when I joined, we were instructed that a salute should be given to ladies; they didn’t say how you should identify a lady however!
I believe it used to be viewed as ‘officers and their ladies, SNCO’s and their wives, other ranks and their women’ so they were quite easy to identify really!