[jester]

Let me put it in these terms.

Have you ever had a roommate that was a total pig? Or had an anoying habit? After a while, it gets on your nerves. Now, compound that, over and over and over. Eventualy you will blow up at them. They will respond back and it can end up in blows.

Hell, I remember one fight over someone borrowing a section of cleaning rod without asking.

And then we have the whole aspect of general prankery which also is quite common. Spiking cigarette filters with tobasco, or someones snuff was always worth a laugh. However, at times this could result in a general @$$ beating if the person was in a generaly bad mood. And often it was your only enterainment, so it is an ongoing thing. Guys with thin skins, or who were PO'ed for some other reason would often take it personaly and it would get physical.

Keep this in mind tempers tend to be short to begin with in a general high stress situation. Usualy weather extremes, short rations, short food, officers and senior NCOs who are playing politics, or who want everything done but fail to remember troop welfare or the capalities of what their men can do. After all, there are only so many hours in a day and your people can only do so much. So the stress gets ratchetted up higher and then poof they play more games which in turn pisses everyone off even more. And then the whole regular operations as well.

I have seen platoons and companies play Phuc Phuc games well into the middle of the night because a four round section of machinegun ammo was found adrift, or the lense caps to the binoculars were not where the Platoon Sgt thought he left them...thus someone was messing with them as a prank, so everyone gets to dig trenches until midnight.

Or, the word doesn't get passed so the entire platoon gets into full kit including back breaking packs and gets to run though a Waddi, lovely thing. A nice baked crust of sant about an inch deep, then your weight breaks through into the stinking mud beneath halfway to your knees. Games are the last thing to be doing when such resources as limited food, water and clean clothing or sleep are available, sadly, alot of the leadership fails to get out of the garison mode where that is the norm of conduct. It makes no sense to exhaust your troops playing games and doing PT in addition to digging positions and conducting patrols and assorted working parties involving pretty heavy labor.

Hell, I remember after a death run in blackflag weather the platoon wasn't sounding off to the cadence enough so add another six miles for penance.

I think the T-shirt is very true, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." A sick joke based on reality, often by leadership that can give a damn about the troops, Lord have I seen those types.