I have a nephew who was drafted and would often leave the house for camp saying if anyone up there touched him he would go Westgate. That’s the type of environment we are talking about.

Our latest group of Soldiers at the end of their term will no doubt face hardship.

” You can not know the comfort of a silk cushion , until you sit on a burlap sack”.

For those of you who may not know what the Military is all about and what they teach you ,it is how to survive under unimaginable difficulty.

A true story………..

I new a Man who is no longer with us, a Bermuda born Man, a Man with courage, fortitude and determination and a man many of us have come to admire and respect, this Man left Bermuda During
W W 11 to join the Royal Air Force, unfortunately his plane was shot down over Germany where he spent time in a German P.O.W. camp.
This Man eventually escaped from the camp and was faced with an arduous trek of hundreds of miles across Germany and France back to England.

By now you are wondering how this Man made this incredible journey.

To avoid detection he dressed up as a beggar and when approached he would make unintelligible noises as if he were a deaf mute , The Germans would have nothing to do with deaf mute.

Back in Bermuda his friends refereed to him as “Mumbles”.
How do I know his story ? I worked with him !

All week they are subjected to swearing but when the governor arrives it all stops. Proud to be Britain’s oldest colony. Hail to the chief.

3rd line; Yes and not the fault of the Government of today.

4th line; Garbage. These young men and women have bonded and learned to rely on each other and that’s what it is all about.

5th line; see above

6th line; Discipline is a b**** and something that many are not afforded even at work or at home. Seeing others conform to things that one would never do or shove aside is productive and helps to change ones outlook on how they feel about themselves, their peers and life in general.

Finally ..they are not “pros.” They did not refuse to attend. They worked their butts off and worked as a team/platoon. Followed orders whether they agreed or not; all parcel to a new thing.

Each platoon is pitted against each other to make them work harder, work as a team and yet in the end they are one.

Shalom.

Furthermore, being conscripted in an organization like this is NOT about serving your country or instilling pride, it is about control and command. If it was about instilling pride and service to your country they would not be forcing people to join, they’d do a better job of educating them to the point that they’d want to join.

You and many others can do your best to protect this vicious organization and the people in it all you want, but reality speaks for itself. The organization is tied to a very bad past via conscription and is nothing more than an old boys club for a select few.

Just cause people dont agree to involuntary enlistment of a regiment that serves no real purpose but ceremony duties and the very occasional national disaster which they dont do a very good job at.

And you sir for you to make a crazy comments about people being lazy because they dont want serve in a Regiment against thier will, you sir are a fool. At that time in my life like other people with other situations i was working 3 jobs helping my parents at a difficult time and had no need or desire to join anything for free that wasted my time.

Since then and today i have a great job and Family and im a law biding citizen, more then i can say about a lot of people that come out of the Regiment, Murders, Thieves, Sex Predators.

So you and other people with that cop out crap mentality need to recognize the Regiment doesnt and will never produce the best soldier and or person. It Start at home with a great family.

Make the Regiment Fulltime and train and pay them right.

If you have just seen the preceding pictures and not attended the passing out parade you have just missed the metamorphosis; transformation or the” Greatest Show on Earth”, there were parents and sweet hearts with tears of pride and admiration seeing their men on that parade ground.

Many many years ago I had a desk job, I am embarrassed to say I was conscripted into the Bermuda Regiment ,that was the way it was, I wish that I had volunteered .

I was only 23 back then and my new bride could not be more proud of me, because she knew what we were in for, if I had known better I would have joined earlier as a volunteer because I then realized that the older you get the more physically harder it gets.

There are many productive lessons to be obtained by joining the Army and serving your country, it is a fantastic experience and nobody says that it’s easy, the rewards are numerous.

You come away with a sense of pride having the admiration and respect from the people of Bermuda.

Go to the cabinet office grounds and weep, there you will see the names of those unfortunate Bermudians who have given their lives in the service of this great country of ours.

There are those who seek to destroy and tear apart the fabric of our very existence with an attempt to disband The Bermuda Regiment, don’t fall into their trap and web of deceit.

By not doing your part, as I and many before and after me, have done you will live a life in self regret and torment for the rest of your existence.

Better men have gone before me.

worst Prince Charles mimic you ever read!