--Today the soldiers sing as they train. In a movie with Bill Murray (Stripes), one might see many cadence chants that allow one to move as a group or phalanx. 'Old King Cole' has been adapted and paraphrased by the Australian Infantry in WW1, to keep cadence and rhythm along the marching route. ''Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer,'' said the Private, ''merry, merry, men are we. There's none so fine on the whole front line, as the Aussie infantry!'', and then on to, ''Left right, left right, left,'' said the corporal, ''beer, beer, beer, beer, beer,'' said the Private, ''merry, merry men are we - etc., with a note said of each rank up to the Colonel, descending back to the Private's Beer!
--Sports teams copy a shout, like the Haka, of the NZ All-blacks. The supporters of Australian teams have taken on an old west country 'god of battle' chant, paraphrasing it, from a caller calling ''Ogi, Ogi, Ogi,'' being answered from the host, ''Oi, Oi, Oi.'' and then a singular shout to the god, ''Ogi!'', answered by the war-host, ''Oi!''. Caller again shouting, ''Ogi!'', and host answering, ''Oi!'', Before the last triple-call, ''Ogi, Ogi, Ogi.'' Answered, ''Oi, Oi, Oi.'' The Australian supporters began to use this chant, changing the name of the god Ogi, to Aussie (Ozi), in about 1972 when two boys from a Naval school in UK were watching a rugby union match in Brisbane. From Howe and Blake houses, they between them got a considerable numbers of Australian supporters to set up a support chant.
--''Skill in singing in Sparta is counted second only to martial valour and in fact is closely related, through the heart and lungs, within the discipline of the phobologia. This is why the Lakedaemonians sing as they advance into battle. They are schooled to open the throat and gulp the air, work the lungs till the accumulators relent and break the constriction of fear.''
--''The Spartans have a term for that state of mind which must at all costs be shunned in battle. They call it - katalepsis -, possession, meaning that derangement of the senses that comes when terror or anger usurps dominion of the mind.''
--''The role of an officer : to prevent those under his command at all stages of battle - before, during and after - from becoming 'possessed'. To fire their valour when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand. -- He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads. He was just a man doing a job, whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by example. A job whose objective could be boiled down to the single understatement, of performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions.''
--[ performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions. ] Here then is the soldier's lot. That our great-grandfathers, grandfather's, and fathers, have gone forward, in mud and fire and frost, to defend us, our rights and freedoms, again and again, that we might now enjoy these benefits of their service.
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< Excerts from - Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield. >
