When a trainee in the British Army, training as a marine, for a period of time, is given a comparatively lower rank, since, he can't keep up with the performance requirement, before trying again.
Out of 10 recruits, 8 of them were backtrooped, and we 2 are the only remaining from the initial batch. Obviously, the recruits who are lower ranked in our batch, can still attempt to enter into our rank.
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)