The importance of managing your men down to their basic fundamentals.
Discipline is more than just a word. It is a set of ideals, mindsets and thoughts that have been developed, honed, and passed down through the generations, not just throughout the world’s armed forces but in many other industries as well, both private and public. Security firms, trade companies, even the chaos of the stock market is built on the foundations and principles of basic discipline. Such fundamentals allow for smooth running of tasks and operations in a variety of fields, whatever they may be. In the military, basic discipline takes on a key role with regards to the performance of armed forces personnel, be it man, specialist or officer.
It is important for officers to manage the discipline of their men, and handle it well because of several factors. For one, a well disciplined platoon would perform their tasks with greater clarity, speed and conciseness than a platoon that is lacking in said field, and for good reason. Much of what the army does is grounded in basic discipline. From simple things such as keeping personal and common areas clean, foot drills, marching in step, to more advanced things like keeping in line during section live firing, IA drills during weapon stoppages or malfunctions. However, to get to the more advanced stages, one has to start at the bottom, with the basics. Simple physics states that in order for a structure to be stable, it must have a strong base, a solid foundation. For the SAF, basic discipline is that strong foundation upon which we build everything else that creates the thinking soldiers of this generation.
Succinctly, without basic fundamentals and basic discipline, you resemble a child trying to run before he or she learns to crawl. There are exceptions to every rule, I don’t deny that. But in order to break the rules, one must first be familiar