SureFire

Right! Sergeant Major, Marchin’ Up and Down the Square

It’s been one of those weeks, time for a little entertainment.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Don’t stand there gawping like you’ve never seen the Hand of God before! Now, today, we’re going to do marching up and down the square! That is, unless any of you got anything better to do. Well?! Anyone got anything they’d rather be doing than marching up and down the square?! Yes?! Atkinson. What would you… rather be doing, Atkinson?

ATKINSON: Well, to be quite honest, Sarge, I’d… rather be at home with the wife and kids.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Would you, now?!

ATKINSON: Yes, Sarge.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! Off you go! Now, everybody else happy with my little plan… of marching up and down the square a bit?

COLES: Sarge!

SERGEANT MAJOR: Yes?!

COLES: I’ve got a book I’d quite like to read.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! You go read your book, then! Now! Everybody else… quite content to join in… with my little scheme of marching up and down the square?!

WYCLIF: Sarge?

SERGEANT MAJOR: Yes, Wyclif?! What is it?!

WYCLIF: Well, I’m, uh, learning the piano.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Learning the piano?!

WYCLIF: Yes, Sarge.

SERGEANT MAJOR: And I suppose you want to go and practice, eh? Marching up and down the square not good enough for you, eh?!

WYCLIF: Well,–

SERGEANT MAJOR: Right! Off you go!

WYCLIF: Oh.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Now! What about the rest of you? Rather be at the pictures, I suppose.

SQUAD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

SERGEANT MAJOR: All right! Off you go!

SQUAD: Oh. Ooh. Great. That’s great. What a day. I want to see the Merle Oberon picture. Eh hehheh.

SERGEANT MAJOR: Bloody army! I don’t know what it’s coming to. Right! Sergeant Major, marching up and down the square. Left, right, left. Left…

NARRATOR #1: Democracy and humanitarianism have always been trademarks of the British Army…

SERGEANT MAJOR: Rubbish!

NARRATOR #1: Shh! …And have stamped its triumph throughout history, in the furthest-flung corners of the Empire,…
[mayhem]
…but, no matter where or when there was fighting to be done,…
[patriotic music]
…it has always been the calm leadership of the Officer class that has made the British Army what it is.

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17 Responses to “Right! Sergeant Major, Marchin’ Up and Down the Square”

  1. Rus says:

    Thanks SSD, that was an awesome blast from the past!!

  2. Erik says:

    God damn do I love the MP skits. I was raised on these, which in turn might explain a lot….

  3. bulldog76 says:

    but what is his opinion on OCP

  4. Lcon says:

    … You got a Nice Army here…. Be a Shame if something bad happened to it…

  5. Jon, OPT says:

    Third time you guys have posted this? Never gets old, I hear tell that pizza delivery men use it as a reference for proper wear of the required beret.

    Jon, OPT

  6. Jim says:

    Love it, but annoys me they get his rank wrong. Pedant much?

    • Whit says:

      I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one that is annoyed by his rank being wrong.

      Still, a great video and one of my favorites. That first line is a classic.

    • joe says:

      Do Colour Sergeants serving as company sergeants major in the absence of a warrant officer not use the billet’s name? I ask in all seriousness, I don’t know the RA’s customs for this.

  7. Jim says:

    Hes a fusilier not RA. No in a word, if he were an acting CSM he’d wear the rank until made substansive or reverted back to CSgt if CSM was posted in from another battalion.

    Well……ive managed to suck the fun out of that…….bring on the dead parrot…

  8. Jim says:

    He’s also addresed incorrectly by the ORs as ‘Sarge’, it shpuld be as a minimum ‘Colour’.
    There are only two types of sarge in the British army, massarge and sausarge.

  9. straps says:

    I think this may be the comments thread for the ages. Educational AND Entertaining.

  10. Jim says:

    SSD has a habit of acheiving both. Shameless crawling 😉

  11. Rogue Male says:

    In the British Army (not “Royal Army”, RA; RA is Royal Regiment of Artillery), Colour Sergeant is a rank in a guards or line infantry regiment; Sergeant Major (Company or Regimental) is an appointment. One could hold the rank of Colour-Sergeant while holding the (temporary, acting, potentially substantive) appointment of Company or less likely Regimental Sergeant Major. The artillery have Battery Sergeant Majors; cavalry/sappers/signals/SAS have Squadron Sergeant Majors; Household Cavalry have Corporals of Horse (equiv to Sgts), Staff Corporals (equiv to Staff/Sgt, C/Sgt) and Squadron/Regimental Corporal Majors.

    In the video, they are all wearing Grenadier Guards other rank cap badges; Palin is wearing a Grenadier Guards Senior NCO cap (gold bands on the peak with red band) and correct sash for an infantry Senior NCO. The ones in the ranks have a faux hackle behind the Grenadier badge on a blue beret, which is no real regiment (the Grenadiers, like all guards regiments, wear/wore when that movie was made a khaki beret with no hackle); the real Royal Regiment of Fusiliers wear a bursting grenade with St. George slaying the dragon within a laurel wreath surmounted by a St. Edward’s crown, with a red over white hackle; the Royal Welch Fusiliers wore a bursting grenade with the Prince of Wales feathers encircled by the regiment’s name and an all-white hackle.

    Carry on, chaps.

    • Jim says:

      On second glance RM is correct but he is wearing the incorrect cap badge for his rank, no cipher. And his peak…..well….Gaurdsmen the world over are probably apoplectic! !