Armies often liken themselves to guard dogs: unloved and unwanted until they are needed. The relationship between the Defence Forces and the public here is more complex, however. For every incident of dubious hearing-loss, there is a peacekeeper killed in Lebanon or a granny carried up 13 flights of stairs in Ballymun, and the result is a mixture of admiration and ridicule.
This confusion extends into the realm of equipment. We are told they have state-of-the-art rifles, radios and camouflage clothing which are envied by their counterparts abroad. A day later we hear they don't have nearly enough ships to patrol our seas and that anyone could overfly our sovereign airspace, impeded only by harsh language.
The Defence Forces currently face a classic pincer attack: on one side the Department of Finance wants numbers reduced by more than 3,000; on the other, the skills-hungry, civilian jobs-market is snapping up not only existing members of the military, but also the suitable candidates for any vacancies.
All of the above is fairly well known, but the public, outside of those connected by family links to the Defence Forces, knows very little of what they do, where they do it, how well they do it and, most importantly, if they are going to keep doing it.
"If you look at other large monopolies in the State, they have marketing departments, they run advertising campaigns reminding people what they do. We can't do that," says Army press officer Capt Tom Clonan.
The eclectic nature of Army life means it is difficult to quantify how much time is spent doing what or training for what. Some raw facts do help, however.
"At the moment, fully 10 per cent of the Army is serving abroad," says Capt Clonan. "When you consider that there is another 10 per cent training to go abroad, and another 10 per cent just back from serving overseas and on leave, that makes up nearly a third of the Defence Forces at any one time, and that's before you take out their annual 24 days' leave."
The Army also has huge commitments to security, or aiding the civil power (ATCP), and most people are not aware of the extent to which this is so. "Any time explosives are used or moved in the State, we are there," says Capt Clonan.
The Defence Forces also train as the reserve emergency services for the State in such cases as ambulance or fire-service strikes. "Any job that exists in civil society is replicated, whether it be drivers, firemen, paramedics, engineers, gas fitters or doctors," he says.
All that is before the conventional activities of an army can be contemplated. On the ground, this has the effect of filling up a unit's schedule very fast. "If you take it that there are 24 working days in a month: if a guy does eight 24-hour duties, that's eight days. After each of those duties we try to give him a day off, so that's about eight days a month left," says Capt Carl O'Sullivan (31) from Athlone, Adjutant of the second Field Artillery Regiment based in Dublin's McKee Barracks. He left his business, economics and social studies course in TCD to join the Army at 20, completed the commissioning course in the Curragh and then did a degree course at NUI Galway.
"Some men will be sick, doing routine administration or whatever and with what is left we are supposed to be training, so that come the end of the year, when test groups from PfP [Partnership for Peace] come over and say `so you want to send an artillery battery to Bosnia, are you up to it?', we can say `yes'."
O'Sullivan says that in a comparable unit in other armies, most of the year is spent on conventional training. "We don't get a chance to do conventional deployment more than once or twice a year; most of our year is spent on ATCP duties."
However, for a force under such pressure, many members of the Defence Forces display an impressive amount of entrepreneurial spirit. Many a nightclub has Army men on the door. And taxi drivers, part-time students, landlords and even burger joint franchisees can all count more than a few military personnel among them.
Capt Clonan concedes this but points out that what people do in their own time is their business. "As long as it doesn't affect their units' effectiveness, and it doesn't, that's fine," he says.
The problem comes when the private sector competes for the loyalties of soldiers on a full-time basis. Some officers complain that many able soldiers are leaving because NCO [non-commissioned officer] openings are not available and so their promotion prospects are limited. "If they are any way good and they have one of the new five-year contracts, they will leave," says one. There are problems at officer level also. Capt O'Sullivan's day is not helped by what he terms a "drought of captains", which means he has to cover what are intended to be three distinct posts.
"In this unit I am the regimental adjutant, which is a full-time and demanding job, as well as being the quartermaster and a battery commander. I generally come in at about eight in the morning and take parade at 9.15 a.m. I come back in and usually put on my quartermaster's hat and for the first half an hour go and sort out the logistical end of business. It's a full-time job, and to be fair I lean heavily on well-qualified NCOs to do the work for me."
After that, he works as one of the regiment's two battery commanders until 10.30 a.m., if necessary hearing disciplinary reports. Another officer, unwilling to comment on the record, says that indiscipline within the ranks is an increasing problem. "When I first joined the Army, I didn't see a charge sheet for five years, but some of the people we are getting now are constantly in trouble. I used to laugh at what British officers had to deal with in Soldier Soldier, but I'm not laughing now."
Back to Capt O'Sullivan. He works the rest of the day as adjutant but such is the workload that he has to wait until he has a 24-hour duty to complete the rest of his paperwork, which seems to grow daily. "If I want to take men up hill-walking on Lugnaquilla, I have to apply a month in advance."
"Understaffed" is the understatement he uses. Some of the 24-hour duties he performs will be in command of one of the Army patrols constantly moving around the city or on call, a job which, while vital to the security of the State, is rarely less than tedious. "I don't enjoy sending soldiers out to bore themselves silly on a cash escort," he says. Nevertheless, it must be done and is time-consuming. "When I take over the duty, I brief them on the work for the day, and what threats there may be, and then before going out, there will be a specific briefing about what force can be used and where they are going."
Sgt Sean Deegan from Finglas has three medal ribbons on his tunic. A small figure seven on one of them represents the number of tours he has done in Lebanon. A career soldier, he is one of the NCOs who really run an army. For him also, much day-to-day duty is spent on security and keeping the men sharp. "The NCO is one of the people who has to drill it into people that complacency will be your downfall if anything happens."
Basic tasks such as cleaning also have to be overseen. "We used to have a contract cleaner that would come in in the evenings; I don't know what happened with that but now we have to interfere with training to accommodate that."
At the moment he is in the Curragh running a training course for gunners. "The course is in its third week. Yesterday, we had breakfast here at 6.30 a.m., drew equipment at 7 a.m., we were out the gate at 8 a.m., and arrived back here at 7 p.m. We were due to stay out later for night firing but we came in early because of the weather." The first four days of the week are like that: on Friday the guns are cleaned and then many of the students on the course do guard duties over the weekend.
For experienced soldiers there are regular courses in areas such as signalling and surveying. There is also a physical training session every day soldiers are training in camp. This may consist of running in the park, circuits or even a game of soccer. Recruits are taught drill to train them to obey orders but after that there is very little of it, except on ceremonial occasions, explains the unit's second-in-command Comdt Thomas McAnally.
Sgt Deegan is fairly upbeat about his own job. "There are a lot of openings coming up with PfP, and I can see some interesting times coming up, especially serving abroad." However, in view of the upcoming White Paper, this optimism is also mixed with such a degree of uncertainty that he would not recommend a career in the Army to anyone just now. "At the moment I would have to put them on hold and say `no, wait and see what the future holds'," he says.
Gunner Frances Forsyth (25) from Dun Laoghaire is one of the few female soldiers in the artillery. She was a nurse's aide before joining the Army and hopes to transfer to military nursing in the next few months.
Currently she is a signaller with the regiment but would not normally work with weighty artillery pieces. She has, nevertheless, gone through the same course as the men in the unit, been to Lebanon twice, goes on the same armed escorts as them and on the same tactical exercises "always when it's cold, never when it's hot". Despite the tedium, she finds getting out and about in the city on cash escorts a relief from the military grind. "It's nice to see civilian life; you don't feel like you are going to work."
Gunner Forsyth says she doesn't find difficulty in being a woman in the Army. "It is a man's army but as long as you muck in, it's only till 4.30 p.m. every day, then you can put on a dress and be a woman. You train with the men from day one so you know what it is like. You just have to have a bit of give and take."
She says she hasn't personally experienced any harassment. "People are too afraid of A7 [a sexual harassment charge] for that." Harassment may happen but it is targeted as much at male, younger, naive soldiers. Even then, she says, "it is just slagging".
Having served on active duty abroad plays a major role in breaking down gender barriers. "When you have served some time, people look on you differently, especially the older ranks who don't believe in women in the Army but now say `well, she did her time'."
