TOXIC!

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crfriend
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Re: TOXIC!

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beachlion wrote:The Dutch military have a similar system where they test 7 different aspects of a recruit. The worst classification is S5. S stands for mental stability and 5 is the highest grade.
Is this to say that a "5" is the most stable type or the least? I'm just curious as I'd be under the US system in which case I rather doubt that mental stability makes a whit of difference, and that they may prefer quite a bit of mental instability.
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Re: TOXIC!

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crfriend wrote:
beachlion wrote:The Dutch military have a similar system where they test 7 different aspects of a recruit. The worst classification is S5. S stands for mental stability and 5 is the highest grade.
Is this to say that a "5" is the most stable type or the least? I'm just curious as I'd be under the US system in which case I rather doubt that mental stability makes a whit of difference, and that they may prefer quite a bit of mental instability.
I am not sure exactly what you are saying . But it would seem that you are insinuating that the government preferred mentally unstable soldiers.
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Re: TOXIC!

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oldsalt1 wrote:I am not sure exactly what you are saying . But it would seem that you are insinuating that the government preferred mentally unstable soldiers.
'Twas a simple question -- and in outright warfare sometimes a bit of instability can be a benefit. Types with a rock-hard grounding in ethics and sensibility [1] are sometimes more likely to disobey orders than types less grounded.

CAUTION: This is an observation, not an indictment.



[1] Basic training is supposed to break that, but in the highly-stable that can fail.
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Re: TOXIC!

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crfriend wrote:
oldsalt1 wrote:I am not sure exactly what you are saying . But it would seem that you are insinuating that the government preferred mentally unstable soldiers.
'Twas a simple question -- and in outright warfare sometimes a bit of instability can be a benefit. Types with a rock-hard grounding in ethics and sensibility [1] are sometimes more likely to disobey orders than types less grounded.

CAUTION: This is an observation, not an indictment.



[1] Basic training is supposed to break that, but in the highly-stable that can fail.

Excuse me what part of your rear end did you pull this bull S--t out of What you are talking about only happens in the movies not real life

Rock hard ethics and stability are the very basis of making decisions in a difficult situation.

mental instability has no place in the decision process. and will only lead to making the wrong decision
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Re: TOXIC!

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oldsalt1 wrote:mental instability has no place in the decision process. and will only lead to making the wrong decision
I completely concur. But how often do you actually see the decisions made that way? And the command decision is only the first step where things can go wrong.

There's a deep history of entirely stupid command decisions that were made due to dogmatic concerns which have condemned far too many souls to an early grave, and we should use the upcoming Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) to reflect on those.

So it is well known, Dan, thank you for serving your country -- and thank you to the others who have. Whether the prevailing political policy was valid or not, that is no reflection on your service and sacrifice. You did what you did with honour. Done.
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Re: TOXIC!

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I'm sorry for being vague. It is such a well known label in the Netherlands, it did not occur to me it needed more explanation.

We had drafting for the military until the 90s IIRC. Recruits were tested and got a label afterwards regarding their abilty to serve.

It was called ABOHZIS, with a typical military logic to it.

A = Algemeen (General)
B = Boven (Upper limbs, arms and hands)
O = Onder (Lower limbs, legs and feet)
H = Horen (Hearing)
Z= Zien (Seeing)
I = Intelligentie (Intelligence)
S = Stabiliteit (Stability) mental

Those aspects were grade from 1 (best) to 5 (worst).

Some men tried to skip military service and simulated all sorts of strange behavior. If the testers feared those men could mean big trouble during their service, most were rejected with S5. Later in life they tried to hide this label when they had their interviews for jobs.
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Re: TOXIC!

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beachlion wrote:I'm sorry for being vague. It is such a well known label in the Netherlands, it did not occur to me it needed more explanation.
No worries, and I managed to get it wrong. It's not the first time, and likely not the last time.

Thanks for the clarification.
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Re: TOXIC!

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There's a deep history of entirely stupid command decisions that were made due to dogmatic concerns which have condemned far too many souls to an early grave, and we should use the upcoming Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) to reflect on those.
I agree with what you are saying . Where I thing you are wrong is that dogmatic concerns that you are referring to are the result of mental instability and not of the hard rock grounding ….
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Re: TOXIC!

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oldsalt1 wrote:Where I thing you are wrong is that dogmatic concerns that you are referring to are the result of mental instability and not of the hard rock grounding ….
That is certainly possible, but to riff on the Armistice Day theme and on the way that the First World War was prosecuted, it was largely fought with the tactics and strategy that was in use during the Napoleonic era. Somehow, an intervening war -- which was the bloodiest to the then-date -- was ignored completely, even though there were military observers from the European nations present. Which one, you might ask? None other than the US "Civil War". And nobody noticed.

There were some things about "The War Between the States", "The Civil War", or "The War of Southern Independence" depending on one's viewpoint that were startlingly different from what was going on in the early 1800s. Most profoundly, the cataclysm that engulfed the still relatively-young US in the 1860 was the deployment of technology to the battlefield and in support of it. This, in essence, was the first "tech war". For the first time, humankind saw what breech-loading guns, railway technology, and even the then embryonic fully-automatic weapons were capable of. Beyond that, the 1860s war was one of digging and engineering. We were horrified by it, and that's why we celebrate Memorial Day here in the USA, but that's lost on a large percentage of the populace. And which the Europeans who prosecuted the "First" World War ignored -- in spite of fifty years' worth of further technological progress.

Is the above overt stupidity or a solid grounding in ethical behaviour? I'll leave the ultimate decision to my reader, but I submit that the command staff that prosecuted that ill-advised war completely ignored recent history to inform their tactics, and several millions of lives were wasted in the process, and which likely set Europe (as a whole) back by decades in the process -- only to see the whole damn thing light back off again twenty years later.

Can we please do better going forward?
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Re: TOXIC!

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Your comments about financial hardship resonates with me. I was born in the mid-fifties when war rationing was just ending. My background is working class and right up through my early life and until my children were little money was tight. The children were virtually left home before we started being able to eat out and afford foreign holidays. So being financially prudent was drilled into us. It's a relatively recent situation where we no longer have to worry about money and our pension years should be well, comfortable. We just have to time our retirements as mine is March 2020 but MOH's is not until August 2021. I suppose that at a push we could both retire anytime - it's just the time when our state pensions become available. As my surname is Stephenson, and having done some genealogy, my background is definitely North East England and then up to Scotland where it peters out.
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Re: TOXIC!

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Sinned wrote:..... As my surname is Stephenson, and having done some genealogy, my background is definitely North East England and then up to Scotland where it peters out.
Dig a little further and you will end up in the Netherlands. ;)
Steven is a Dutch first name so the step to Stephen is small and then we come to his son, Stephen's son. And the rest is history as they say. ;)
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Re: TOXIC!

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beachlion, that I cannot prove or disprove. I am descended through one of George Stephenson's [0] brothers. His line goes up to Scotland where the trail goes cold. It is possible that you're right but without the physical records it cannot be proved if and/or when. I have no objection to being descended through Dutch or any European line so just shrug shoulders and accept what is.

[0] The railway engineer and pioneer. His son Robert died without issue so there are no direct descendents. My father had the same excellent engineering skills and intellect. He could apply himself to do anything mechanical and could keep up or surpass me in rational argument and science. Being born just before WW2 his education was not the best and in most things he was largely self-taught. Of course whilst living with him I completely failed to appreciate what a great person he was. I walk in his shadow.
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Re: TOXIC!

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Sinned wrote:beachlion, that I cannot prove or disprove. I am descended through one of George Stephenson's [0] brothers
George was a bit of a charlatan but his son, Robert, was a good engineer.  We never seem to hear anything about George's brother.
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