The military is a strange bird. A perfect example is the use of the third person. I'll explain this and then give an example in which I was involved that demonstrates that I am not new to the task of ridiculing the ridiculous.
The military uses the third person much in the sense of Louis XIV, the Sun King who stated “L'etat.C'est moi.” For example, I would ask “is there anything else that the Colonel desires?” The Colonel would then have the option of saying "No, I'm okay” or “the Colonel is not very happy with the results of our discussion.” This is an indication that the rank and the person are one.
When speaking to a subordinate there is also a very large difference in whether a personal pronoun is used or the rank. For example, if my CO said to me “how could you do something so stupid?” it would be much different than if he had said “how could a lieutenant in the Marine Corps do something so stupid?” (In fact, the latter case is probably a lot worse. It's ok for him to think I was an idiot, but not that I was an idiot as a Lt.)
A good example would be if you were a supply officer going on a field exercise and you had sufficient rations for four people but five people had to be fed. So you make the decision to give each person 4/5 of the full ration. You get called in by one of the people's commanding officer and he asks you “why did not my Marine get a full ration?”
If you began to answer “I thought...” The CO would scream at you "I don't give a shit what you thought. I asked why my Marine didn't get a full ration.”
So the correct response is: “Sir there were four rations remaining. There were five Marines to get those four rations. The two options I saw were to give each Marine 4/5ths of a full ration or to give four Marines a full ration and one Marine none. I consulted with my sergeant who stated that in other cases such as this he learned that it was better that all Marines get a partial ration then one to get none. I then made the decision to take the Sgt's. advice and give each Marine 4/5 of a ration. I take full responsibility for the decision, Sir.”
Of course saying "I thought that it would be better to give everybody partial rations then have one person get no ration at all." is really the exact same answer. But as he stated, the CO did not "give a shit" about what someone thought. He wanted the answer of a Marine Corps Officer. A person wasn't standing before him, a Marine Lieutenant was.
Very silly? Maybe. But it does demonstrate Capt Honors' error. It was not he, Owen Honors, who made those videos. It was the XO of the USS Enterprise. "Le XO? C'est lui."
So now to my personal example and this is a "No shit story", i.e. the god's honest truth.
I had a collateral duty as Mess Officer for the enlisted Mess Hall. In English, that means I ran the facility that provided meals to the troops. One day a particularly asshole type Marine, a Corporal, came in, complained about the food, stated “this food isn't fit for dogs to eat" and then left. I knew I would hear more of this. The next morning proved me true. I got called in to the Marine's commanding officer's office. After screaming at me about the shit I was serving for his men to eat and how it was bad for morale and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (you know on Charlie Brown cartoons how the adults sound like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah? That's how the CO sounded to me.)
I looked the Colonel in the eye and said “Sir, the corporal is a liar.” (Notice the use of the third person.) The Colonel looked at me incredulously and said “what do you mean?” Standing at rigid attention I stated “Sir, the corporal said that the food was not fit for dogs to eat. I brought some home last night and gave it to my dogs. They loved it.”
The Colonel looked at me and I could see the anger in his eyes. I thought I was fucked. Then he screamed at me “Lieutenant, get the fuck out of my office.” So I did.
(This should not be confused with the time I was called into the Master Gunnery Sergeant's Office because one of his men claimed that he had sold me pot. He was a liar too. He never sold me pot. He sold it to a civilian friend of mine from whom I bought it. I would never have bought pot from an enlisted man. That is SO against the code of an officer and gentleman about which I wrote yesterday.)
PS: They use the word "fuck" a lot in the military.
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