brave new world.

The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing. There was a whisper under every pillow. The D.H.C. halted and, bending over one of the little beds, listened attentively.

"Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let's have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet."

At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.

"… all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …"

The Director pushed back the switch. The voice was silent. Only its thin ghost continued to mutter from beneath the eighty pillows.

- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

To me this is a really good metaphor for how the army's organised... You have the alphas (officers... like all my OCT pals are going to end up) sitting on the betas (specialists... people like me), who in turn whack the gammas, deltas and epsilons (enlisted men, or men for short). And yeah, we do get some propaganda about specialist pride and all that - I'm so glad I'm a Beta - and how we play different roles from officers - cos they're frightfully clever. And yeah, the different classes of gamma, delta and epsilon might well be different educational levels... a levels vs poly vs o levels vs ITE, that sorta thing.

It's deeply, darkly ironic, this metaphor. For years of school and all that I was groomed to be, more or less, let's face it, an alpha. When I went in and landed in sispec it was like pulling the carpet from under my feet. And it did bother me for a very long time; still does, somewhat. But when I remembered this passage from BNW - just out of the blue, a few weeks back - it did strike me as being really fitting. I could finally kind of rationalise my situation, even laugh at it - this caste organisation is put up for ridicule and criticism in BNW; it's nearly absurd, even inexplicable. People aren't people any more... officers are seemingly a different breed altogether, some magical class of ubermansch? Us specialists, caught in the middle... but still over the lower lifeforms, the saikang squads, the men (yeah, complete with the dismissive tone of voice). That's what army does to you; you don't see humans, you see ranks. Things that are, in the grand scheme of things, worthless, absurd, meaningless. 

So now whenever they do things like make us recite the specialists' creed, or when people ask if I'm disappointed about not making it to OCS... this comes to my mind:

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.

I'm so glad I'm a Beta.

And I laugh, and nobody really knows why.