You know what really grinds my gears? The Gears Strike Back

I was thinking the same. There are no badges (other than classification) available through the official channels for us other than flying badges.

I know of some courses in my region that have got to the point of charging cadets a pound or two. To cover beverages, resources including a badge as the wing/training team have had to privately purchase then

1 Like

How do you know they didn’t buy them from Cadet Direct?

Maybe I’m in the minority, but our Wing has caught up now. There’s still a slight delay, but it’s mostly just the time it takes to process the paperwork.

Hence the “tongue in cheek” bit…

To the public at a recruitment event, it’s very eye catching. More likely to see this and be drawn to it, rather than a poster.

I’ve done similar with an old piece of ply, wrapped in MTP and used it to display items of a ration pack or cleaning kit.

However, it does look abit like that North Korean Generals uniform, so I wouldn’t have used a jumper myself, but the concept is a good one.

Well, in this case, it was to catch the eyes of a judge in a competition.

It’s all well and good to show something like this, until the badges aren’t available or you can’t do the activity.
To paraphrase The Scorpions “Don’t make promises your body can’t keep”.

I think it’s disgraceful that staff buy course badges and cadets are charged to pay for courses so they can get a badge. I’ve not bought any badges, much to annoyance of my WSO, although he fully agrees with my rationale.

easy solution - remove the badge from display if the course is not available!

and what is that rationale?

I’d rather you let someone take you far away on a holiday (to paraphrase The Scorpions). Maybe to Gorky Park?

Despite discovering that you might have a good taste in music, “I’m still (not) loving you”.

1 Like

Not even on a “Sunday morning”?

The rationale that the badges aren’t supplied so why should we buy them, it’s for HQAC to supply them.

We thought they were pinned on yesterday after looking at it, not sewed, so it isn’t a waste of badges anyway.

A similar thing happend to my sister where she was issued MTP but the sqdn didn’t have any belts and made her buy them (obviously my parents weren’t happy)

She is lucky to be issued MTP as part of joining the RAFAC is that greens aren’t really issued unless you are lucky and a belt purchase is damn slight cheaper than a whole dpm/mtp kit.Your parents should of been briefed properly by the Sqn.

7 Likes

We’re no different at our unit and while we help where we can, I explain that certain things are needed that we can’t usually supply. Not had any complaints yet.

Join a sports team and you buy half your own kit…

2 Likes

are you suggesting you would rather stop training, halt all courses and remove opportunities for Cadets for the sake of a piece of cloth which isn’t supplied free?

2 Likes

Following on from the discussion started in the “happy” thread (You know what really makes me happy?)…

I have been to Sachsenhausen, I have seen the ovens, and I have felt the eeriness. I have visited many of the memorials and museums in and around Berlin.

From a different era, I have been to Langemarck and Tyne Cot alike and stood in awe at the scale of those places - also Ysselsteyn which is mostly WW2 - and was shocked at some of the ages on the graves.

…

Now for the GMG bit:

Considering the Mash is satirical, it merely plays on much of the charged language in use by the MSM and politicians - look at how they all attempt to slur and demean each other and how political reporting, acclimatisation, and propaganda have skewed our understanding of “left” and “right”, pushing a narrative that policies and behaviours are far more extreme than they actually are - especially previously centrist or only marginally liberal ideas being “extreme leftist”.

Corbyn is painted as a communist while the Conservatives and Farage have hoovered up the likes of the BNP and Britain First. The Conservatives ran a mayoral campaign attacking the opponent’s ethnicity and have a problem with islamophobia (but let’s not mention it and focus on Labour’s antisemitism issues). Then there’s the complete and utter disdain shown towards the EU and its representatives, the “hostile environment”, demonising of immigrants, polarisation of classes with ideological and politically calculated attacks on the poor, attacks on the judiciary in the press and by politicians… these are all fairly right-wing kind of ideas. The only thing the Conservatives fell short with was where the balance fell on police numbers and they opted for austerity over control.

No, these people aren’t Nazis, and I utterly despair at the state of politics and political discourse in this country (and around the world - the USA is no different). But we have been incrementally creeping further to the right and using divide and conquer type messages, untruths, and smears straight out of their playbook for so long that we are at risk of normalising right-wing ideals and not being able to restore any degree of integrity to politics. And it’s not just us - Far Right groups are in the ascendancy in Europe and the States, too. If we don’t recognise and satirise such use of charged language, what can we do? You can’t fight fire with a water pistol.

That people get so hung up at satire, but are less vocal about the actual media and political propaganda baffles and depresses me.

3 Likes

I understand and get what you mean to me the politicians, media and the like are all playing silly games to paint opponents as badly as possible and then have the audacity to complain/discuss about the lack of respect in this country.
Even the pathetic point scoring that’s going on sometimes it seems there is no point in even trying to have a decent discussion with people.

1 Like

No, you can do the “training/course” and not have a badge. I’ve done many courses and not even had a bit of paper to say I have. By doing what people are doing they are not forcing HQAC’s hand to actually ensure they supply things from day one, not put something in place like a badge scheme as they did and make some really poor excuse as to why they can’t supply the badges, but then hey presto they are available to buy through a third party. Similarly rank slides, bar initial set.
This badge scheme like so much emanating from our national HQ, smacks of something that was rushed, with the message squadrons have to fill the funding gap. There is an old adage about not doing something you can’t afford, something or to do something you don’t do it that HQAC might need to think about, the next time they get all pie in the sky.

Just because you don’t have a badge doesn’t mean you don’t know the information and or ability to impart that knowledge.

Politicians having been like that since time immemorial.