In praise of cock-ups

Someone recently sent me a video of some French Canadian soldiers getting theirselves in a to a mess with a missile. I forwarded it to a friend who had spent some time in the service of a major regional power. Before we read the response, have a look at the video.

Priceless eh, but his reply was even funnier and made me realise that despite our millitary being undoubtedly brave, and sadly essential, sometimes it must be scarier for them to face their colleagues than to face the enemy!

I quote.......

“The video reminded me very strongly of my military experience (conscripted) back in '85, where during the first 3 month training period, we were at a missile test range where we were doing ground launch tests of a new dogfight missile off a static launch rail. Unfortunately some knucklehead forgot to strap down the rail, so when the missile took off, the rail went vertical and the missile went straight up. Everyone scattered as far as they could, except for one guy who ran from behind the sandbags to stand right next to the launch rail. When asked later, his response was something along the lines of "what on earth is the probability that it would land back on the launch rail"


Lateral thinking at it's best, I'd say, clear evidence that, in the lower ranks, the millitary have some common sense!