Following my blog Avoid the stupid and hardworking about the Prussian Army types that Baron Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord encountered, a friend has written an updated version for today’s British Army. My correspondent is an Army Officer so is well qualified for the task.

Some thoughts from a more modern perspective – about 1952, which is where the Army is stuck. 

The Army is a firm believer in investing in people and maximising talent [pass the sick bag already], which mean that the MOD can pay a consulting firm millions to develop glossy on-message brochures, which they then roll up to sodomise you. The Army’s version of maximising talent is putting the big lads first to act as a human buffer against razor wire. 

The personnel appraisal system has mysteriously endured through successive defence reviews and budget upheavals, I imagine because it is now so entrenched in our language that the thought of changing it would have senior officers reaching for the sal volatile—or the nearest NCO to give him a good lashing. 

We in the Army are “thirded”. Top third, middle third and bottom third. All three are used as a form of introduction, though never in the presence of the subject. “Did you know that Capt Suchandsuch is joining us next month? I’ve heard he’s a solid middle thirder.”

Bottom thirders are referred to in a number of ways. Lizard, melt, creature, and cluster are the most common. In the officer’s cohort insults abound: “I wouldn’t follow him around a supermarket”; “he has all the depth of a car park puddle”; “he has the breaking strain of a soggy kit-kat”. These chaps tend to go to the logistics corps, although there is a smattering of them across the Army. They tend to have utterly unfounded yet deeply held self-belief, and often fall in to the bracket of the dangerously incompetent [von Hammerstein-Equord type 4]. The best thing you can say about a bottom third officer is that he’s bottom third but he knows it. Sadly, a lot of the senior leadership are bottom thirders. They have survived by dint of ‘staying on the log’ – more on that later – and have been promoted simply by remaining alive long enough, but certainly not through merit.

Some of the more progressive, or soft and “caring”, officers have pointed out that “bottom third” is a rather humiliating term – bad for morale – and have suggested alternatives such as “lower third” or “other third”. Needless to say this silly wokery hasn’t caught on, and those who suggest it are shunted off to bottom third jobs where they can’t do any more damage. 

Most people – 90% – constitute the middle third. Synonyms include “won’t set the world on fire”, “bit of a grey man” and “I honestly can’t remember anything he has ever said”. They won’t fuck-up but they bring no glory. They are officers who would make it through a war without firing their weapon or dying. They are generally content with their lot. They aspire to retire on a Lieutenant-Colonel’s pension somewhere in the Cotswolds with a spaniel, a couple of kids at uni and a spouse in a Barbour jacket, Alice band and solid employment. As soldiers, these are the guys you want: reliable, competent, and usually extremely good company. 

Top thirders are either extremely effective or the absolute worst. The worst are the thrusters, those who know how bum-snorkel like a champ, reliably absent when any actual work needs doing, but appearing like a shapeshifter moments before the CO shows up. As officers they epitomise the Sandhurst ethos of “run fast, shout loud”. You can have all the substance of candyfloss, but run fast and shout loud, and well, you’re in the top third, my lad. Thrusters know they are thrusters, and don’t care. They would happily sell their granny for facetime with the boss, and they would just as fast throw that boss under a bus for some crotch-sniffing with a general.

The good top thirders are referred to as genuinely good blokes, gleaming, or golden. They are rare and valuable, both extremely competent and self-aware, and for that reason usually lift the curtain of the Army sooner than most and have all left within six years of joining to earn gazillions in the City. The ones that stay do well, they are the ones who normally make Chief of General Staff level. 

Earlier, I wrote of “staying on the log”. This refers to the log run. On arrival in basic training every recruit is given the necessary kit to survive the impending course, including, ominously, a short length of rope. The purpose of this becomes clear a few weeks in – you knot with another, slip it underneath a horizontal telegraph pole, and as a team, all with your little rope holders, lift the log and run with it forever. There is always a rotating reserve and when your hands begin to bleed or you feel you cannot hold on for much longer, you rotate out and get a bit of a breather, until the next sorry sod raises their hand, at which point you rotate back in. If you fall back or fall over, you get the honour of a place in the jack wagon, the slow moving landrover which follows behind such activity for health and safety reasons. Going in the jack wagon is a heinous sin – you had best be dying, but more likely you are a malingering bottom thirder with an ouchy leg. Staying on the log at the front, setting a ridiculous pace and bellowing “keep it up, chaps” every few minutes is a top thirder’s role, thrusters and good blokes alike. But as long as you are still on the log by the end, even if that means getting out of the jack wagon because your ouchy leg feels a lot less ouchy now the end is in sight, then you pass. Hence the term, stay on the log.

Here ends my correspondent’s text. The parallels with the church are striking.

So there we have it, girls and boys. There are lots of ways to classify people. Perhaps you like von Hammerstein-Equord’s taxonomy. I do. Perhaps you see merit in the Army’s thirding. I do. Perhaps like me you can see lots of overlaps. Invent your own taxonomy. I used to classify people as fxxkers, wankers and buggers. Then I added tossers. But this isn’t really adequate since for me wankers and buggers (as in silly …) are terms of endearment, and none of them sufficiently describes the scabbiest specimens of the species.

In any case, have a good laugh. And for goodness sake, look in a mirror and laugh at yourself.