There was a day when soldiers feared - and I mean to use that very word - what would happen to them if they mishandled their weapon, let alone the consequences of having an AD/ND. This isn't just about training basics, or the lack thereof, it's about discipline too, of course.
Part of that has to do with being in an essentially peace-time force, even though it spends up to half its time in a nominal war-zone - part of the difference between fighting a counter-insurgency on the one hand, or a full-fledged conventional war on the other, perhaps. A counterinsurgency war is just "low-intensity" enough for most troops to avoid major combat operations day-in and day-out and so to kind of cut corners, but 'high-intensity" enough to require those very high standards of training and discipline when MCOs do take place. Can encourage spottiness in-theatre, and just plain sloughing-off once back home for a stretch.
It doesn't help any that quite a few NCOs are fairly young, still less when junior officers are by definition usually fairly young themselves. A degree of self-discipline and maturity - and of course experience - tends to be lacking as a result. It is not impossible for a Corporal to still be in his teens, or a Sergeant to be in his early twenties. In a major concentional war, that isn't as much of a problem after the first little while, because those who are left often turn into training and discipline fanatics in order to survive. In an unconventional war, the same sort of "cull" doesn't quite take place the same and is rather more limited, so bad habits are not as likely to meet with their ultimate sanction, unless of course one finds oneself in extended MCOs such as in the Battles of Fallujah and other places in the Sunni Triangle. Those who make it through those battles and campaigns have a lot less tolerance than many of their peers who do not endure such experiences in the same theatre of operations.
NCOs in Commonwealth Armies normally have a fair bit of experience, and are significantly older too, during peacetime or LIC, and it helps, plus officers tend to be as well. Majors command Companies, and specialist Platoons (Recce, Pioneer, AT, Mortar, Machine-Gun, etc.) are commanded by Captains. A Corporal (or in Canada, a Master-Corporal, the rank of Corporal nowadays being just the old rank of Lance-Corporal, which was formally abolished in the late 1960's) normally has 6 years or more of service before receiving rank, and is at least 22 or 23, though more usually in his mid-twenties. A Sergeant normally has at least 9 years' service before reaching his rank (there are few regular Sergeants who are not at least in their late 20's), and most Sergeants are in their thirties. In peacetime or LIC, that can make a big difference in the ability to enforce discipline. In major conventional war it doesn't make as much of a difference, since most of those experienced NCO's (and officers) are amongst the first to die anyway, and you're left with the more motivated junior survivors to handle things.
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