Is 'skipper' an insult?

[reginaldon]

I joined the Andrew in Jan '49, all our Chiefs, POs & Officers had war service and nothing to prove, I never came across bullying, but we did not expect kid-glove treatment; at a grammar school, everyone used surnames anyway. I always preferred it that way, especially from managers in the bank - we knew where we stood and addressing them as 'Sir' kept them at an appropriate distance, especially the rat bags!

 

[prv]

On the other hand, when I arrived at Dartmouth in 1968, about the first thing we had to do was make up our beds. The public school types like me found ourselves helping some of the highly intelligent day school guys who were baffled since Mum was no longer available to help!

We had to make our beds at school, but laundry was done for us. However, before leaving school for a very brief stint in the Army (what amounted to a year's work-experience scheme) I had the nous to ask Mrs Turner the laundry lady to teach me how to iron a shirt very quickly

Pete

 

[skisimon]

Is it true that officer training schools in the US still allow/encourage 'hazing', i.e. licensed bullying? And how does that compare to Sandhurst, Dartmouth etc?

As a more recent resident of Dartmouth, I can confirm that there is still no hazing/bullying. Though there was one light-hearted incident which caused one person a touch of distress one morning...

One chap had been getting particularly concerned that it was his job to get everyone to a 0500 PT session. He was insisting that everyone had to be up at 0400 (ridiculously early - it only takes a few moments to put on some pre-prepared PT kit). He got a very early night for some reason. Shortly afterwards, we changed both clocks in the cabin (a large dormitory - 'the Zoo', for those in the know) to read an hour fast.... His watch and the 'cabin radio' were also changed. Someone (I can't say who) even sneaked into the clock-tower overlooking the parade ground (the tower being visible from 'the Zoo') and changed the time on there to read an hour fast. Aforementioned chap's alarm went off at 0400 (as he had planned), then seeing every clock was reading 0500, including the College clock-tower, he frantically tried to get 20+ immovable objects out of their beds. We held our straight faces as long as we could. Eventually, someone, from their rack, let him in on the happenings of the night before...

He did 'get' the point though, and became much more realistic about what it was reasonable to ask of 'his men'.