I prefer the idea of you marching to make the enemy wet his pants and run away. Whatever happened to:
That's more like it! And I'd be very surprised if members of the armed forces - straights, gays, lesbians, blacks, Asians, whatever - didn't feel the same way.
The Victor. I remember reading this excellent magazine when I was at school and having long debates about why soldiers always died in versions of their own language. The Japanese went:
ReplyDelete" Yiiii!", the Germans : "Aacchhh!" and the British : " Aarrgghhh!" From memory, the Americans did not feature.
If the Victor is still going I suspect the depiction of combat has been banished and the action takes place mostly in the mess amongst expressions of "Get you!" with everybody dancing to show-tunes or vaping madly? I am probably wrong.
Only real men vape.
DeleteDidn't the Americans go "Shhhiiiittttt!" or "Buuuummmmmerrrr!" or something?
If the Victor still exists, it will only be circulating in samizdat. Any child caught reading anything like that in a school these days would probably be suspended for a month and sent for psychiatric counselling.
It's all a (very) long time ago now, but I seem to remember as a lad reading The Victor at the barbers when I popped in for my regular short back and sides.
ReplyDeleteI know only too well that memory plays tricks but I seem to recall a character called Typhoon Tracy.
A British squaddie, as strong as a bear, as brave as a lion, with a jaw-line Desperate Dan would have been proud of.
He would take on tanks, bend rifles, lift trucks and pull out trees by their roots. This was one hell of a man! Or was he?
Looking at my mythical hero from a modern perspective, particularly with a name like "Tracy"! it's become suddenly and stunningly clear: Typhoon Tracy was transgender.
No doubt he / she would have been on yesterday's march, proudly flexing his / her medal bedecked breast whilst chewing a cheroot at the head of a troop of marching / mincing British soldiers.
That lot will certainly frighten the enemy. As Corporal Jones once said, "They don't like it up 'em."
To be fair to Typhoon Tracy - Trouble Shooter!, at 6'6" and built like a tank, it's unlikely that he was transgender (unless, of course, he was on the USSR female shot-putting team in the 1960s). But the "giant, superhumanly strong but not very bright soldier of fortune" (as one website describes him) does admittedly look a bit homoerotic (well, very, to be honest - he sports a nautical cap, a red shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulder, blue jeans, big work-boots, his muscles have their own muscles, and he boasts a luxuriant mane of curly blond hair). He first appeared in Hurricane between 1964 and 1965 before appearing in Tiger between 1965 and 1969.
DeleteMy favourite character in The Victor was Alf Tupper - The Tough of the Track. No idea why. Surly bugger.
There seems to be a man in a skirt on the cover of the Victor - is this an early depiction of a transgender combatant in action?
ReplyDeleteAlmost - it's actually Gay Gordon of the Queen's Own Brighton Regiment (the "Old Inclusives", as they're known), dispensing leaden death. But the day when each regiment has a quota of transgender/transvestite troops can't be that far off.
Deletehttps://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-db6ee36ed9ec25eca8bc89cdce8413d2.webp
ReplyDeleteThe best martial music in the world accompanied the Ladies From Hell in WW1.