29 Nov 2005
“IN THE LINE OF DUTY,” announces The Sun, as it reveals “another secretly-shot Royal Marines video”.
Yes, it’s exclusive on-set pictures from Ross Kemp’s new ITV drama, in which he plays a short, fat middle-aged man with a disability that means he has to whisper instead of talking normally.
Despite these drawbacks, he is actually really tough, and so he gets into the Marines, where he becomes a hero. But although he is a hero, he is also very sensitive, and he has a secret - he is a victim of domestic violence.
In shocking scenes that are sure to provoke massive controversy, he is STRIPPED NAKED, URINATED ON and KICKED IN THE NUTS by his mad wife who is obsessed with PAEDOPHILES.
Only kidding. The Sun’s story is actually a compassionate and very serious report about initiation ceremonies at a military base in Taunton.
The allegations will surprise no one (“WRESTLING each other naked… JUMPING head first into bushes”) and they make predictably depressing reading.
As if that isn’t bad enough, we are told that recruits are also made to “SLIDE down a muddy hill, EAT Weetabix covered in dirt and SINK pints of milk until they are sick”.
It sounds all too believable. Indeed, it sounds like the sort of thing that many young Britons do for a laugh on holiday, and we agree that it’s nothing to be proud of.
Unfortunately, the days when apprentices had their p$$$s stuck in bottles and their scrotums covered in boot polish are long gone. And the military, like everyone else has to move with the times.
It’s a shame that they have to make do with harmless drinking games and mud-sliding. Army chiefs will be the first to say that they miss the days when a man’s privates could be rubbed raw with a scrubbing brush and a bucket of industrial detergent.
But what can they do? Their hands are tied with red tape (metaphorically, we hasten to add) and until they are free to run things properly, we can expect more of these shameful revelations.
from
Anorak
