CHAPTER SEVEN
Journal File #087
For those of you who are like me, which is to say dyed-in-the-wool civilians, and therefore unfamiliar with the stuffy quaintness of military jargon, you should at least be made aware that it is a fantasy language all its own, specifically designed to hide its activities and attitudes beneath officious blandness. (My own personal favorite is referring to casualties as inoperative combat units.) Such is the case with the so-called confidence course.
What it is, is a path strewn with obstacles at regular intervals which the soldiers are to traverse in the least possible amount of time. In short, it’s what normal people would refer to as an obstacle course. It is no accident, however, that military personnel are never referred to as “normal people.” Somewhere in their hidden past (you notice no one in the military ever writes about it until after they’ve retired, or shortly before) it was decided to change the image of the old obstacle course. Rather than change the course, they opted to change the name. The theory was that it would be more acceptable to those it was inflicted upon if they understood its function, which is “to increase the soldier’s self-confidence by demonstrating to him (or her) that he (or she) can function successfully under adverse conditions.”
This, of course, assumes that said soldier is able to successfully negotiate the prescribed course.
Personally I would have questioned the wisdom of my employer’s use of the confidence course as a means of establishing or reestablishing the self-esteem of the individuals under his command … had I been asked. After reviewing their files, not to mention experiencing the dubious pleasure of viewing and meeting them in person, I would have had serious doubts as to their ability to successfully tie their own shoelaces, much less negotiate an obstacle-excuse me, confidence course. From what I have gleaned of their comments on their first attempts at this exercise, my appraisal was not far from accurate.