Monday, July 5, 2010

Military Voyeurism

Military Voyeurism,  looks "cute" but IT'S STILL WRONG!



The Zouave!



5 comments:

  1. This will be the longest comment I've ever left on anyone's blog...including my own. Three Stories; All of them true, names changed/withheld to protect the innocent/guilty.

    1st Tale - When on annual maneuvers in the Sauerland, I as a senior soldier was tasked to lead 3 other privates on a night reconnaissance to a rail/road crossing. When we got there we found a small farm and a large grain-loading silo, this was an old design with a rectangular cross section and internal ladder (modern ones are just large tanks, this was a box on legs), we - quietly - set up on the walkway that ran around the internal 'cabin' at the top of the box, and two of the guys laid out in their maggots to sleep. My and the other chap mounted first stag at about midnight, and soon noticed a light come on in the upper story of the farmhouse, this turned out to be an un-fogged window into the bathroom, the window was plain glass as it was a high slot-type and wouldn't normally have been overlooked. Needless to say the family then proceeded one by one to carry out their bedtime rituals, I won't go into the details but the daughter was around 25 and the mother still 'had it'.

    You might feel slightly uncomfortable reading this, I feel guilty writing it, but those cards are far from fantasy.

    2nd Story, when Support Company were mounting a tranning cadre for Recce Platoon in the Gruewald, the had set up an OP in a pile of brush near the banks of the Havel to observe and report on waterborne traffic, when they were able to watch a cameraman and 'Glamor Model' conduct a hour or so of photo-shoot involving the girl, a yellow plastic hat, a yellow umbrella and not much else...bearing in mind that they were in their OP 40/50 yards away with some of the most sophisticated imaging devices known to an Infantry battalion!

    3rd story. When the battalion mounted it's annual NCO's cadre, the training officer involved lent his car to a junior lieutenant, as he wouldn't be using it himself for a week or two. Again mounting Recce Patrols in the Grunwald the platoon noticed the Captains car parked-up at the edge of the woods one afternoon, mounting a snap-OP they waited 20 minutes to see the young lieutenant coming out of the woods hand-in-hand with a bearded German civilian who would not have looked out of place in the Blur Oyster Club! In those days (mid-80's) that sort of thing was rather frowned upon in the Army. and with soldiers tongues being as lose as they are, the subaltern soon returned to civilian life.

    Make of these what you will, but this stuff goes on all the time, and these are the three that I remembered as I read your post, others include an incident on the back stairs at BMH Berlin involving Rudolf Hess which probably earned the soldier involved a new file at MI6, a brief glimpse from the elevated section of the M4 returning to the TA barracks at Hounslow one morning and an incident in a village on the Norfolk/Suffolk boarder involving a naked couple on their lawn at 2am! She squealed like a stuck-pig, ran off and jumped in the pool, he covered himself and just grinned at us!

    Yes, civilians should take care what they do in the early hours, especially if they have military stationed or operating in the area!!!

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  2. Accidents happen. I think if one sets out to "look" missing work, school, and family then that's a problem for the looker. I know women that really hate even the idea of it as it's a violation of privacy and that it's a creepy activity.

    There's a lot of this Voyeur postcard/comic humor from the early 1900s. The examples I posted are only the military.

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  3. The other interesting thing is that we (arrogant - sometimes!) Brits have this piece of cultural history known as the 'Saucy Seaside Postcard' which is presented as a uniquely British institution, it's clear from this post (and others you've published) that actually it's a pretty universal multi-national pastime!!!

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  4. I've seen a LOT of those. Large lady in RED bathing suit or large lady in STRIPED bathing suit?

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  5. That's them! Sometimes polka-dots but only ever red, red-and-white or blue-and-white! OHH Matron!

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