"Well, let's just say I can remember one or two POs and CPOs who took exception to my attitude, and put me straight - and I hadn't done anything like this kid."
I bet there's a heck of a story behind that sentence...
It's a story that is important to me - but probably not that interesting, really.
I wasn't quite sixteen when I joined the RAN as a Cadet Midshipman - that's the age they took us then - they still wanted boys to train as officers. I'd already finished school by this stage - I'd been allowed to go through school two years ahead of my age, but the understanding was that because they had to treat us all the same, I would have to redo all the 'high school' level classes that we all had to do. I agreed to this, but really didn't take it at all seriously. I started getting lazy and I started getting sloppy - and it spread to the other areas where I didn't already know what we were doing, but I was acting like I did.
Anyway, my PT teacher at my old school - PT - Physical Training, what's now called Physical Education (we called it Physical Torture) was an ex-navy Chief and he'd encouraged me into the navy. He ran into one of my CPO instructors - he'd actually been his instructor, and mentioned that he knew me and asked how I was going, and he wasn't happy with what he was told. He told the CPO that I hadn't been like that at school, I wasn't really like that, and - well, basically, from what he told me later, told him that I was worth trying to get back on track.
The CPO wasn't that hard on me - I was still only 16 at this stage - but he sat me down to talk to me. A few others (mostly officers) had tried talking to me about my attitude, but had taken a fairly laid back approach. Might have worked for some, didn't work for me. The Chief basically scared the living daylights out of me. He stressed the fact he was an adult and I was still a child and I was acting like one, and that gave him all sorts of options to deal with me. You have to understand that moderate - very moderate - corporal punishment was still used in our training, and that was enough that I took what he was threatening to do to me very seriously. I don't have a clue if he'd have followed through on his threats, but he certainly convinced me at the time that he would. He also passed the word to my other instructors to make a real impression on me, and a couple of days later, one PO gave me a solid clip across the ear, when I made an inappropriate joke that revealed I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying.
It all lasted about two weeks. Then they stopped and I suppose gave me another chance. And I took it.
The other time was actually after I was commissioned - I was a Sub Lieutenant and really full of myself because I was an officer, and rather foolishly tried to reprimand a WRANS PO - a woman who was probably in her mid 30s and I was about 20. She told me "Go away, little boy." And I went and reported her to our line Commander.
He called her in and gave her a very mild reprimand - and I mean very mild - about the importance of showing proper courtesy to a commissioned officer, and then he turned to me and in an absolutely scathing tone, said "And you, Lieutenant. Go away, little boy."
I should say I did grow up, and I think I did a decent job over the next twenty years or so.