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Army
Jimbo's official guide
To
kit inspections
Since my official guide to room inspections was published
I've been overwhelmed with letters asking for advice on that
other greatly dreaded inspection - the kit inspection.
I'm
glad you all came to me with this and it's good to see some
of you taking my advice and trying to adapt it to different
situations (Joe from Victoria, I think maybe you went a bit
far), but I'm afraid the room inspection and the kit inspection
are two very different things.
The
thing about room inspections, right, the thing about r-o-o-m
i-n-s-p-e-c-t-i-o-n-s, is that they're dead boring, even for
the people doing the inspection. After your boss or your sarge
or your CSM or your RSM has walked through a couple of rooms
in the lines he's sick to death with it, especially if the
rooms are all in top order and there haven't been any yelling
opportunities.
A
kit inspection is different. Your sarge is just the kind of
sick individual who lives for kit inspections. He'll do this
stuff all day and no diversion is big enough to stop him.
So
then, it's worth remembering the sentiment expressed by the
crown prince of Oodnadatta (it's a little desert town in South
Australia) when he was translating into English (although
some "out-there" conspiracy theorists suggest he
made it up himself. These same people, mind you, claim he's
not a crown prince at all, so their credibility is questionable)
Sun Tzu's less famous title, The Art of Microwave Cooking
- "he who is conducting the kit inspection has not his
own kit inspected" (don't ask me how it came up in a
book about microwave cooking).
I
think with some modification we could adapt that phrase to
suit this occasion. The simple solution here is to pick the
one person who will not be getting his kit out on the parade
ground, the sarge, and - don't steal, which is wrong - "trade"
your less-than-satisfactory kit for his pristine paraphernalia.
But
wait, come back! Not so fast. Knowing what you're going to
do is not knowing how you're going to do it. Let's remember
for a moment that the Sergeants' Mess is an impenetrable fortress
of old school ideals and stale port. How are you, an ordinary,
unassuming soldier, going to infiltrate this bastion of 12-year-old
unwashed socks and soiled coffee cups?
I
know what you're thinking, Brian from Queensland, you're thinking
about finding a skimpy bikini and a few dozen balloons and
putting on some makeup and a wig and a tape player and Tom
Jones' Greatest Hits and pretending to be a stripper for somebody's
buck's night. Not so fast. Trust me, I've been there - it
doesn't play out quite like you'd think and once you start
doing lap dances it never stops. But that experience gave
me a valuable insight into the inner workings of a place like
the Sergeants' Mess. Nothing is better for drawing every sergeant
and warrant officer in the building out to the front foyer
with their never-been-cleaned travel brew mug and that old,
dry, stale cigarette smell than a young male soldier in drag
doing a strip tease.
So,
since you need to be the one doing the kit swapping, you'll
need to enlist a mate to help you (and by "enlist"
I mean "blackmail", in case you didn't understand).
If you've any sense then I'm sure you've been spending a good
portion of every day digging up dirt on the folk around you,
and this is one time that your efforts will pay off. Of course,
don't use all the dirt you have on somebody straight up, or
they might counter with some incriminating evidence of their
own, you want to keep your options open during the bartering
process and hopefully you'll come out on top. If not, best
you start practicing with those stilettos; it takes some getting
used to.
- If
there's something you'd like to ask Army Jimbo, just write
to:
Ask Army Jimbo
Army newspaper
R8-LG
Department of Defence, Russell Offices
ACT 2600
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