The Past and Future at Sandhurst -- By: NRO Staff
By NRO Staff
The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is the British equivalent of West Point, the barracks-cum-college where cadets train to become professional army officers. Every year there is a passing-out parade, and a fine affair it is too. The most outstanding cadet is awarded the Sword of Honour, and this year it went to E.A. Hillman of the Parachute Regiment. The future of the British army is in the hands of such men. Among the several hundred cadets listed as on parade, not one, as far as I could see, had a name that suggests Muslim identity.
Overseas cadets also train at Sandhurst, and in the past one such was King Hussein of Jordan. A Coldstream Guards drill sergeant earned a certain immortality by shouting at him on the drill square, "Stamp your feet, you idle little man, Mr King of Jordan, Sir!" King Hussein liked to be reminded of it. This year-- again as far as I could see--16 overseas cadets are identifiable by their names as Muslims. Two belonged to the Al Khalifa family ruling Bahrain. The others came from Brunei, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Qatar, Tanzania, the United Arab Emirate and Yemen. The hope is that some fellow-feeling and maybe even gratitude towards Britain will have been instilled in them, as was the case with King Hussein. But what if the opposite occurs, and they put their training to wage jihad against British interests? On the same day as this parade, Israeli top brass was warning that the Palestinian forces trained on the West Bank by the American General Dayton for security in the Palestinian state on which Barack Obama's heart is set are likely to use that training for another bout of fighting against Israel, another intifada. Where would that leave General Dayton and the policy of the United States?
David Randall Jaquith is the name of the one and only American who was on this parade, and he was awarded the Overseas Sword of Honour. It would be fascinating to know what this intrepid man can tell us about his time at Sandhurst. |
