Quote Originally Posted by ljperreira View Post
It depends on the unit, or branch of service. If you belong to a rabble, an undisciplined group of wannabes who just signed up for the benefits, then I would agree with you. But if you join an organization that takes its job seriously, and doesn’t tolerate laziness or sloth, then you’re dead wrong. My experience in the Marine Corps taught me that if squad leaders were not omnipotent, then they were pretty darn close. Of course, you always have that 10%, as we used to say, but those guys were always pulling the shite details, so to speak. I would like to think that the Legionaries constituted the more disciplined classification, but that’s just my opinion, and couldn’t be proven or disproven without traveling back in time.....
The marines are something of an elite unit, while your average legionary was just a salaried grunt, so I am not sure if they are comparable. For example, in "In the Name of Rome", Goldsworthy writes that when Corbulo was preparing for his Armenian campaign, he found that some of his legionaries had actually sold their armour. That does not speak of a high regard for their equipment. IIRC the Eastern provinces were considered as easy spots, so this may not be representative. But the degree of combat readiness probably varied over time and space.