Duties
A batman's duties often include:
- acting as a "runner" to convey orders from the officer to subordinates
- maintaining the officer's uniform and personal equipment as a valet
- driving the officer's vehicle, sometimes under combat conditions
- acting as the officer's bodyguard in combat
- other miscellaneous tasks the officer does not have time or inclination to do
The action of serving as a batman was referred to as "batting". In armies where officers typically came from the upper class, it was not unusual for a former batman to follow the officer into later civilian life as a domestic servant.
Read more about this topic: Batman (military)
Famous quotes containing the word duties:
“The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish,—all duties even.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life’s duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“... the prevalent custom of educating young women only for marriage, and not for the duties and responsibilities consequent on marriage—only for appendages and dead weights to husbands—of bringing them up without an occupation, profession, or employment, and thus leaving them dependent on anyone but themselves—is an enormous evil, and an unpardonable sin.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)