The cautionary portion of a command is called as a warning to the cadets. The executive portion of a command is the action. When the commander calls ‘move to the right in threes, right‘, it gives the opportunity to the cadets to understand the movement they are about to complete. For this to be useful to the cadets, they must understand the difference between their right, left, advance and retire. This isn’t as simple as knowing their left hand from their right. So get ready.. it can get confusing!

When the flight is dressed, whichever way they are facing, becomes the focus point. If at one point, the advance is one way, it can change next time the flight is dressed in another direction. The most recent dressing will always determine the positioning of the advance, left, right, and retire.

Let’s use the parade square and dias as an example. When a flight is formed up for closing parade, and the flight commander dresses his/her flight, with the flight facing the dias, that area in front of the cadets becomes the advance, their backs, retire, their left, their left and their right, their right. Confused yet? I hope not, because at this point everything is straight up. Now, if the flight commander calls a right turn, the cadets are now facing the right.. but nothing has changed and the dias is still the advance, even though the dias is now on their left.

Whatever you remember, just remember the positions of the room will stay the same for a commands perspective, even though the bodies are moving – until another right dress is called.

So, at this point if the top of this webpage is the advance, and the cadets are turned —>, the proper command for an about turn will be ‘move to the left in threes, about-turn‘ Why? Because, even though they will be turning to the right in the about turn, it has nothing to do with the cautionary. The cautionary is letting the cadets know that they will be facing the left of the direction of the last right dress.