Subject: Re: LMF - I thought you'd never ask
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 28 2002 - 19:18:59 EDT
Beautiful work, Scottie...
Jim
Robert Bowman wrote:
>
> He was a cocky little Welsh shit, with hand-stitched suits
> & silvery winged hair & a lot of discreet gold accessories:
> cuff links & cigar cutters & propelling pencils & so on.
> Eventually, I think, he became one of the Knight Physicians
> to the Queen.
>
> During the war - which was long before I knew him - he'd
> been appointed to the RAF psychiatric branch as a civilian
> neurological consultant because of his research work on head
> injuries. This involved strapping a monkey into a chair & then
> knocking him out with the carefully calibrated swing of a lead
> weight on a pendulum. Years later, he would reduce his more
> sycophantic students to giddy laughter re-enacting the way
> the monkey, having learned the cause of his suffering, would try
> to twist round to see when the blow was about to fall.
> He was very exuberant & had many similar jokes.
>
> He was eventually - God knows why - consulted on more genuinely
> psychiatric matters, such as the failing morale of bomber crews
> whose job it was to fry several thousand Huns every night until
> their own fortitude failed or they were themselves fried.
> This was, on average, around the twelfth night. In the old days,
> of course, we executed those where the first event preceded
> the second. But now the proceedure was to demote the culprit,
> post him immediately to the most remote, uninviting station available
> & stamp his medical documents with the code that would brand
> him for the rest of his time in the service - & in his own mind,
> no doubt, ever after.
>
> Denis - for that was his name - was the bloke who came up with
> the code. 'We probably can't call them cowards,' he said. 'What
> they're really suffering from is a Lack of Moral Fibre.' And so
> it was established: LMF. The set of initials any member of
> the Royal Air Force dreads the most.
>
> What a pleasure it is to recall the one or two occasions I was able
> to put him down. But, then, my own intrepidity was not being put
> to the test, nor was my career in any way dependent on his goodwill.
> I still can't forget the good men, braver than him by several
> wing-spans, whose reputation he laughingly fouled up.
>
> He's long dead & gone, of course. But if I were Dante I'd have spent
> many a happy hour trying to decide in which of my Circles he truly
> belonged.
>
> Scottie B.
>
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