A trained, practiced and calculated jackass to produce soldiers with reduced affect.
I don’t think that’s such a good idea for civilian police officers, probably worse than the military hardware.
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The story doesn’t mention the most cruel part of the test - candidates who fail are forced to slaughter and eat their rubber chicken, which they’ve been raising since they started at the academy.
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Well, both my spouse and I went through it and we are not diminished affect hardware, tyvm.
Agreed that civilian officers and Military should not have the same level of adjustment training…that being said, the military does not train nor expect soldiers, marines, etc to be mindless emotionless machines.
It’s not phrenology, it’s buffering.
The ones who broke looked relaxed because they were trying to be in an emotionally neutral zen-like state, so when a mildly funny chicken came into view there weren’t any other emotions to get in the way and they laughed.
The ones who passed were really intense and focused before the chicken showed up, so the mildly funny joke didn’t register the same way because they were focused on something else.
I suspect that’s the point of the exercise, learn to create an emotional barrier with both positive and negative emotions. Which might be a debatable objective, but I can see the benefit. You don’t really want the officer’s response to change depending on whether or not they’re in a good mood, or if the member of the public is a charming person who can make them laugh.
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Don’t kid yourself, the officers that pass this test still have a sense of humor. I remember an officer who stopped me from walking down the street in Oregon.
Officer Stonyface: Where were you born?
Uncascrooge: I’m from Oakland.
Officer Stonyface: Well that’s a good place to be from! Haw Haw Haw!
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Suppose a cop was interviewing Trump campaign officials. It would be important not to break up laughing.
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Yeah, same problem in BASIC here. For whatever reason, I don’t sweat much when I exercise, so one time a Drill Sergeant decided that he would continue “smoking” a group of us until he saw me break a sweat. It took a while. The reason I was there in the first place was for cracking in formation at a joke a Drill Sergeant knew he’d get me with. Fortunately, he was a great guy and highly respected. No one held it against me.
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that situation I described…the Senior DI afterwards approached me and leaned in and very quietly said “that was a good one private.” He was a really good instructor. He rarely yelled, he was even tempered and spent most of his time correcting and coaching and teaching…not punishing and trying to humiliate people.
Definitely a good reason he was a senior DI and the lead DI in the battalion and a Master SGT.
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I come from a military family. One of my main regrets in not serving was missing out on the verbal abuse of a skilled DI.
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Aye, you’ll only get semi-skilled verbal abuse on this forum.
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I try, but I’m not a professional.
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I wasn’t aware that squeaky chickens posed such a threat to public safety.
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Sounds like good times.
Well I giggled the whole time.
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