Of course, even if one accepts the “skill over size” concept, there is still a glarin’ flaw in the sergeant’s logic. Remember how long I said it would take to train someone with a longbow? (No, this isn’t gonna be a test … I was just askin’.) Well, it takes even longer to train someone to be skillful at Hand-To-Hand. A lot longer. The idea that someone like the Spellin’ Bee could absorb enough skill in one afternoon to be effective against one of the Flie brothers, however unskilled, is laughable. Realizin’ this, it was clear to me that even though he said we was bein’ prepared for combat with the enemy, all he was doin’ was showin’ us a few tricks to help us survive the inevitable barroom type brawls which seem to naturally gravitate toward people in uniform who are tryin’ to have a quiet drink around civilians durin’ their off-duty hours. Simply put, we was bein’ trained to deal with unskilled civilian-type fighters, preferably blind staggerin’ drunk, rather than against skilled soldier-type fighters in the field.
“… Of course, these are techniques which will enable you to dispatch an unarmed opponent!” Sergeant Smiley was sayin’, which was again misleadin’ as none of the countermoves he was demonstratin’ were lethal enough to “dispatch” anyone, confirmin’ my belief that someone was figurin’ we’d only use them on civilians.
“… To deal with an ARMED opponent, however, is a different matter entirely! Fortunately, we have an EXPERT with us to demonstrate how that is done! GUIDO! Front and center!”