Posted: 11/6/2013 9:19:08 AM EDT
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Suppose an old Soviet equivalent of gunny Sgt. Hartman was around. What would he have been like? Would there even have been enough food to sustain someone like Joker? (i doubt it) Cramming borscht down this guy's gullet instead? Tossing new conscripts into water in sub-zero temperatures, ala polar bear style? Bussing in dissidents for actual live fire exercises? Gulags fear this guy?
yes it's a little slow today.... and go! |
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I was thinking of the exact drill instructor from this movie. |
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Quoted:
Suppose an old Soviet equivalent of gunny Sgt. Hartman was around. What would he have been like? Would there even have been enough food to sustain someone like Joker? (i doubt it) Cramming borscht down this guy's gullet instead? Tossing new conscripts into water in sub-zero temperatures, ala polar bear style? Bussing in dissidents for actual live fire exercises? Gulags fear this guy? yes it's a little slow today.... and go! No such animal ever existed within the Soviet system during the Cold War era. Which was one reason the Soviets were so screwed up, and remain so. There were no professional NCOs, or recognizable equivalents to such--It was all officer-run, and officer-led. Training would be supervised by the officers, fresh out of the Soviet academy system at the junior level, and then they'd turn the barracks over to the senior draftees, who ran them like some kind of nightmare frat house where the longer-serving troops abused the living shit out of the new ones. At any given time, there would usually be four different groups in any unit, based on the time they were drafted for their two-year terms. Since the intakes were every six months, the "classes" would average out to be about a quarter of the unit. What NCOs there were were shake-and-bake types selected to attend training courses who held little to no real power. Think "Lord of the Flies" when the lights went out, for a very good idea of what it was like. I had a young man under me in the US Army who'd emigrated to the US after the wall came down, and he'd been drafted into the Soviet Army just before all that happened, in the late 1980s. He had a very interesting perspective on the whole thing, and would openly make fun of any American kid he heard complain about conditions. Some of the stories he had were flat-out horrific, especially about life in the barracks and how he and his fellows were treated by the more senior soldiers. Ugly doesn't begin to do it justice. |
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this was SOP since 1914 Quoted:
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Soviets didn't really have a professional NCO Corps. So probably a good amount of rape and physical abuse, drinking, and stealing equipment and probably selling whatever he could on the black market. this was SOP since 1914 How many AKs did you buy 
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