Wow- Observer, I hope he's okay with you posting such stuff about him up. You're saying that he doesn't engage with the talk about him online, right? Otherwise that statement could be really explosive... so "not ps", she's not talking about that so please don't jump upon that.

Yes I know the SAF interacted with people from a whole spectrum of society- I do my homework well. I don't want to denigrate the sort of ability for army generals to engage with their men, but for me it did seem that at the end of the day, the part of society they were spending a majority of their time with was a very limited cross section of society (18-21 year olds); moreover they usually don't bring most of their personal lives into the borders of the camps, and thus it is difficult to see their true backgrounds.

I've also observed that some army officers develop a superiority complex over the rest of society after years of 'lording' over their men- I'm not entirely confident I'd not be susceptible to it. On the other hand some officers in the police ironically seem more humbled by the sort of work they do, and seem to carry themselves with more humility as they realize how little they can do vis-a-vis the human tragedies of the perpetrators and victims of crime.

Well notps, I guess I'm interacting (NOT engaging- "engaging" sounds condescending wth) superficially online. Its the best I can do sitting half the world away from home...