Good enough for the goose...

I read in the newspaper today that various groups are outraged on learning that boys in Palestine are signing up for a two-week course of basic military training. According to the story they are being trained in how to use AK-47 rifles and what to do if a grenade happens to land nearby (fall flat on the ground). Apparently this is seen as anti-Israeli provocation. I didn’t see it that way.

In fact, it reawakened memories long since forgotten. In grade nine we boys were issued Lee-Enfield rifles and taught marksmanship. True, the weapons had been modified so that they fired .22 calibre bullets and had no magazines, but, otherwise, they were the same weapons used by the Canadian and British military for the previous 40 years through two world wars. We were also issued Second World War khaki military field uniforms and ordered to polish the new boots until the dimples disappeared in an even shine. We had basic parade drill and presented arms with more or less precision.

After the Americans invaded and failed to take Cuba the Russians, in response, attempted to arm Cuba with nuclear-enabled missiles. Even though America had surrounded Russia with similar weapons, this was seen as extreme provocation. As a consequence, we secondary school kids were herded into school basements and told that if we crouched on the floor with our hands behind our heads and necks we would be safe from the nuclear bombs that were certain to fall on us any day now.

Learning to fire Lee-Enfield rifles and marching around in uniforms as if we were real soldiers was seen as perfectly normal behaviour when I was growing up. I don’t recall anyone suggesting that this was anti-American (Canada’s traditional invaders) provocation. And certainly, learning how to prevent being turned into plasma by a nuclear blast by placing one’s hands behind one’s head was not seen as some sort of anti-Russian propaganda.

Ah, but we live in a brave new world where the teaching children lies about how to survive nuclear blasts or adjacent grenades is now a sinister propaganda tool. Even worse, showing teenagers how to load and fire a military weapon, whether of British or a Russian origin, is a threat to world peace. Funny how these things change.