While not entirely unique to the military, black humour is probably seen by commanders at every level as the key factor in assessing morale in trying conditions. A very true expression I came across time and time again in the military was ‘…don’t worry when your soldiers are complaining; it’s when they stop that you know there’s a real problem.’ And I found that to be very true; that no matter how bleak or tough the situation, the jokes and the banter kept coming. It was when this stopped that I knew we had something to worry about.
We use idioms and sayings such as ‘If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’ that encapsulate the meaning of humour supporting triumph over adversity. I’m pretty sure every former and serving member of the Armed Forces has countless examples of these that they chuckle over whenever they recall them to memory. But they serve a very useful function whereby anyone who is feeling overwhelmed or scared shitless during a situation is brought out of their private hell by a shocking but hilarious statement. This pulls the individual back into the support of the group and takes their mind away from the deep, dark abyss it has just been peering over.
It also provides individuals with a relief outlet during times of extreme stress. An example of this I witnessed was when I had just rotated back to my unit after a stint in a very kinetic area of Iraq. We were on the ranges one day when the word came down that we had lost two members of our unit in an ambush. I didn’t know either individual other than on a casual basis but many others were shocked and devastated by the loss of close comrades. Saddled upon this sadness was the news that the roles of the recently deceased would have to be replaced.
Pretty much anyone who could have deployed had already done so, to the point where individuals were getting fatigued. But it’s the military and the show stops for no-one. Eventually when no volunteers came forward, a pressed man was found. He wasn’t happy about going back there so soon but accepted his lot with a healthy amount of cursing and complaining. But we knew this guy well and knew that he’d also had a close call on one of his last rotations. So…we are firing away on the range, enjoying the day and the rarity of the occasion when we could all meet up.
A colleague of mine mentioned how strained ‘Trev’ looked and I’d noticed the same thing myself. And we both knew he was processing his forthcoming deployment with anything but joy. Just then a military photographer arrived and said he’d been told to get a few pictures of us for the Unit’s historical archives. As we jostled for positions with the usual banter, ‘Trev’ remained off to one side, indicating that he wasn’t arsed about being in some crap photo for the CO’s study. There was a moment of quiet as everyone sympathised with what he was going through until my colleague stepped out of line and said ‘Oh come on Trev; this might be the last photo you’re ever in with both of your legs mate!’
The laughter was immediate, everyone creased up and even ‘Trev’ gave his first grin of the day and wandered over to join us. The comments were flying thick and fast with requests for his Breitling watch if he lost an arm and his Ducati motorbike if he didn’t make it back at all. He was laughing himself now and demonstrating his contempt for our lack of respect with his two upturned middle fingers. We turned our attention back to the photographer who was setting up his cameras and shaking his head. ‘There’s something seriously wrong with you lot.’ was all he said.
But he was wrong. If we’d all been of a mind to tiptoe around ‘Trev’s issue, or sympathised with well-meaning platitudes; the ‘You be careful over there’, ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through’, ‘You must be so disappointed’ etc, etc, etc…it would have made matters worse. As it was, he left the ranges a different man from the morose scowler who’d started the day. Only problem was when he went back and was relaying the tale to his girlfriend that night, she didn’t quite see the funny side. Oh, and he returned to us six months later. With all his parts complete.
Even during the most extreme circumstances, black humour can act as a coping mechanism that enables individuals to get through the short term period of trauma or shock and allow them to carry on with the task at hand and deal with the emotions later when in a safer environment.
An officer that I knew visited the rehabilitation unit at Headley Court and had steeled himself for the sight of amputees and disfigured soldiers. He’d anticipated a morose, maudlin hospice where the feelings and sensitivities of the patients would require great care in order to avoid offence. To his relief and surprise, nothing could have been farther from the truth. What he encountered was an environment of tough-willed individuals who refused to be defined by their injuries and relentlessly mocked each other’s ailments and injuries.
He witnessed many occasions where, during the sports sessions, double amputees would mock those who had lost ‘only’ one leg, referring to them as ‘plastic’ or false claimants, showing off with their big, fat, white leg. On one occasion he was stood speaking to a wheelchair-bound veteran when another individual in a wheelchair negotiated past them. Without a word, this individual reached out and upended the veteran my friend was talking to, tipping him right out of his wheelchair and onto the floor. My friend was stunned as the perpetrator sped off down the corridor hooting with laughter. The guy on the ground looked up with a huge grin, shaking his head. ‘Bastard! He’s owed me that for ages since I loosened the wheels on his chair a couple of weeks ago!’
There was another interesting aside to the Headley Court example around a few months after this story. The comedian Jimmy Carr made a joke that went something like:
‘Isn’t it awful, all those poor soldiers coming back from Afghanistan. Wounded, maimed, losing their arms and legs. Absolutely terrible…but on the plus side, Great Britain is going have a good chance of winning the Paralympics next year!’
I found this funny. My friends found it funny. Some of the tabloids however went after Jimmy Carr with a vengeance and he was forced to make a public apology and retract his comment. A letter written by a group of injure veterans was put together and sent to the tabloids telling them not to try and speak for them when they were perfectly capable of voicing their own opinions. And that they had found Jimmy Carr’s joke hilarious.
Like many of us, I have retained my love of black humour but have also learned to be careful where and when I indulge in it. The world is littered with masses of individuals just waiting to take offence at the merest hint of an improper remark. A very good friend of mine relayed the story of a BBQ with his new colleagues from his office job shortly after leaving the forces.
They’d began telling funny stories and anecdotes and my friend joined in, throwing his hat in to the ring with a tale that involved a shooting, a brothel, the theft of a prosthetic leg, and a baboon. A classic saga of soldiers abroad getting into a ridiculous situation and living to tell the tale. It was his wife’s hissing of his name that alerted him to the fact that all was not well. It was one of his favourite stories from his time in the military and he’d gotten so caught up in the telling of it he’d failed to register the silence and shocked faces of his new co-workers. The awkward silence that followed underlined how unimpressed his colleagues were with the dark, funny story. But he remembered the laughs he’d got relaying the same tale in his previous life and thought he would receive the same reception from his new co-workers. Sadly, this was not the case.
Paramedics, Fire and Police Service personnel also share a healthy black humour that again, acts as a coping mechanism for dealing with the grim nature of some of their roles. And while it can be frowned upon by officious jobsworths with little else to occupy their time, I for one will never lose my regard for the value that it serves.
