Wall Street Journal Article on Army Boot Camp Changes...

[Thisguy]

I agree with you to a point - they do need to show up "in shape," whatever that happens to be for that particular service. To show up out of shape is to set yourself up for injury, failure, or both.

HOWEVER - There is a world of difference between "OCS" and "recruit training/basic training," regardless of the service. Generally, OCS is designed to screen and evaluate potential officers. You are expected to meet and exceed the standards for that service upon entry.

Recruit training/basic training is just that - BASIC training. It is designed to take a typical American teenager and turn him/her into a basic Marine, Sailor, Soldier, etc., not a poster-boy officer. You are trained to meet the minimum standards for service - not to max out the PFT/PRT/etc. For example, the minimum standards for a male Marine recruit to ship to MCRD PISC or SD are: two pull-ups, 44 crunches, and 1.5 miles in 13:30. It sounds weak, but it is the baseline by which all training starts. By the end of boot camp, you have been trained to do three pull-ups, 50 crunches, and a 28:00 three-mile run - the MINIMUM STANDARDS to be a Marine.

Point taken. I just thought it was sad they ran 60% less because too many people were getting injured. Also, in my original post, people would fail the IN PRT which for a male 20-24 is: 37 pushups, 42 curlups, and a 13:00 1.5 mile run (I think). That is the minimum standard (satisfactory-marginal) Navy-wide, not for officers. Someone our class indoc'd did 10 pushups. I kid you not.

 

[KBayDog]

I just thought it was sad they ran 60% less because too many people were getting injured.

The Marine Corps had a problem a few years back with recruits dropping out due to stress-related injuries, mainly because of the stress of wearing boots all the time (this is back when we had the hard-soled black boots, but it's probably not too much different now). It was a result of growing up wearing sneakers, not "shoes."

They started alternating days of wearing sneakers and boots for the first month (giving recruits time to adapt), without really cutting out any running distance or drill time, and the injury rate nearly dropped to zero.

 

[jarhead]

"They consulted sociologists and psychiatrists and even flew in MTV's senior vice president of strategy and planning, in search of fresh ideas for motivating today's youth. "

MTV is all that is wrong with America.
I'm sure the Army will pull through somehow.

i grew up watching MTV, and i still watch it from time to time, guess i'm jacked up too. America has a lot more issues than MTV. we should start with foreign policy and work backwards ... when we realize countries like Israel & China are stabbing us in the back on a daily basis, we'll be getting somewhere

i feel sorry for the Army, they might as well start the draft instead of taking in shіt ... by taking in shіt the Army is gonna get a lot of good dudes killed in Iraq & Afghan. i'm just glad i don't have to lead that crap into combat.

S/F

 

[AllAmerican75]

(Maybe some of these same men and women, who are looking for a challenge, will help our numbers by considering the Navy or Marine Corps? Maybe not - but I can dream, can't I? )

Maybe they'll join the Air Force, I heard they're pretty hardcore, gung-ho, and all that jazz. But seriously, isn't it the point of basic training to weed out those who don't belong in the service through mental and physical hardship? If you're never challenged in Basic, then when the hell are you going to learn that life ain't always a walk in the park and sometimes it can suck? Also, won't this also lead to the lowering of the standards for MOS schools?

 

[Scotty-O]

I'll reiterate a few points. Basic is supposed to get people ready to be soldiers AND also weed those out who are not fit for service.
It is a short-term solution with long-term deficiencies. I agree some people who truely wanted the challenge of basic will be less likely to enlist and higher body counts will then deter the ones looking for an easy job. Example: when truckloads of soldiers are annihilated because the ladder guy was the first one shot and the rest couldn't get out of the truck, THEN the Army might rethink the policy. :icon_wink
I was at Fort Sill in 1994 when they were trying some of these "low stress" units, which were still more stressful than what this article describes, and it just made me want to puke!
I've been saying it for years now - the US is following the historical empirical cycle: country rises to power, expands in power, then plateaus, then declines from the inside out (think Greeks, Romans, etc). Our own policies and laziness are our own worst enemy when it comes to the US remaining as the world superpower.(that and the exponential output capacity of Chinese and SE Asian factories)
(It's late and I'm tired and I hope my points weren't lost in my rambling) I just can't believe it has come to this!

 

[KBayDog]

But seriously, isn't it the point of basic training to weed out those who don't belong in the service through mental and physical hardship?

Not necessarily. What you have described above is pretty much the mission of the various officer candidate schools, but not basic training programs (though attrition of recruits for failure to adapt to military life happens from time to time).

Theoretically, recruits have been "weeded out" by the recruiters (who usually have some kind of a "semi-voluntary" pre-boot camp preparation program of PT, classes, etc.), the recruiters' bosses, and the MEPS personnel. By the time they ship, the recruits should be prepared to accept the physical and mental rigors of recruit training.

Again, basic training is just that: TRAINING. At OCS, if you don't want to be there, you can pretty much just leave. The services don't want/need somebody that does not want to lead their men and women. At recruit training, the DIs/Drill Sergeants/their equivalents have been given young men and women to train to meet minimum standards. They bust their butts to ensure that those standards are being met. Are they evaluating the recruits' progress? Of course. I can only speak for Parris Island (in the realm of recruit training), but this much is true: The quickest way off of the Island is to graduate as a Marine. If you don't want to train, the DIs will step up their "training" for you, your officer staff will interview you, you may be moved to a different platoon to give you more time to train, etc. Unlike OCS (which is an "interview"), the recruit training staff will not give up on you! (That said, does attrition for "failure to adapt" happen? Of course. I don't have the stats, but it is a very small percentage. It is a long process, and does not happen until all resources have been exhausted.)

Note: If you have not been exposed to recruit training - vice OCS - it is understandable that you would not notice the difference between the two.

If you're never challenged in Basic, then when the hell are you going to learn that life ain't always a walk in the park and sometimes it can suck?

Bingo.

 

[Johnson]

Alright, as rarity on this site -- a guy who is actually not a servicemember [yet anyways] I am alittle concerned. While some of the things mentioned, like brow-beating during mess are practices during mess, I believe that overall, little should be done to change the previous practices. And what actions that are being revamped, should be incorporated into the old way of doing things.

For example, as I understand it, the first week that you arrive at your BCT station, you spend it getting indoctrinated to military life. This is where the Col. Daly's speech would take place obviously. Each day during that week, the heat should be gradually turned up, until the first day of actual training. At this point, it should be the first act of FULL METAL JACKET. The soft stuff should go by the waist-side and they should rachett it up to hardcore ASAP.

Why? Because these soldiers will depend on others for their very own survival. I believe that basic should be difficult, so as to develop confidence in each other and one's self to handle anything that comes your way.

Still, with that said, there is a need to recognize that most of these recruits maybe at very different points physically, so the considerations being implemented [such as the Warrior Rehab] make perfect sense and should be kept.

Just my two sense

 

[mmx1]

Not necessarily. What you have described above is pretty much the mission of the various officer candidate schools, but not basic training programs (though attrition of recruits for failure to adapt to military life happens from time to time).

Theoretically, recruits have been "weeded out" by the recruiters (who usually have some kind of a "semi-voluntary" pre-boot camp preparation program of PT, classes, etc.), the recruiters' bosses, and the MEPS personnel. By the time they ship, the recruits should be prepared to accept the physical and mental rigors of recruit training.

Again, basic training is just that: TRAINING. At OCS, if you don't want to be there, you can pretty much just leave. The services don't want/need somebody that does not want to lead their men and women. At recruit training, the DIs/Drill Sergeants/their equivalents have been given young men and women to train to meet minimum standards. They bust their butts to ensure that those standards are being met. Are they evaluating the recruits' progress? Of course. I can only speak for Parris Island (in the realm of recruit training), but this much is true: The quickest way off of the Island is to graduate as a Marine. If you don't want to train, the DIs will step up their "training" for you, your officer staff will interview you, you may be moved to a different platoon to give you more time to train, etc. Unlike OCS (which is an "interview"), the recruit training staff will not give up on you! (That said, does attrition for "failure to adapt" happen? Of course. I don't have the stats, but it is a very small percentage. It is a long process, and does not happen until all resources have been exhausted.)

Note: If you have not been exposed to recruit training - vice OCS - it is understandable that you would not notice the difference between the two.



Bingo.

Holy thread resurrection.

While I agree that Boot is different from OCS, isn't the primary mission of boot Indoctrination? To render a civilian fit for the norms of military service. The Corps integrates basic infantry training into Boot, but real occupational training occurs in MCT and their MOS school. Those are training commands.

What it seems like the Army's trying to do is skip the whole indoc phase and jump right to MCT, which creates problems if the last 5% disturb the training environment for the other 95%, and bring down unit morale and camaraderie as a whole.

 

[Zilch]

"Could we all just stand up togther? It would look so much nicer."

This line alone made me think the whole article was a joke of some kind...

 

[pourts]

Also, I talked to an army recruiter a while back, and I believe he said that recruits are segregated by MOS. Hence, classes with combat arms MOS recruits may still be "old-school"... or not. This still doesn't help when those supply convoys get ambushed, however.

 

[plc67]

Recruit training seems to go in cycles. After Viet Nam the Army needed to attract adolescents from a society that held the military in somewhat low regard, so you could order pizza in the barracks when you were in boot camp. The warriors knew that wouldn't give them what they needed in the way of soldiers so they toughened the training up and the Army shook off its post Viet Nam depression.
The Marine Corps after Viet Nam was in dire straits also, but didn't resort to such candy ass tactics but training however was signficantly eased. While it was never officially sanctioned, "thumping the hogs" was SOP at the Depots and Quantico but around 1973 that was stopped and it was believed a bit of the hard edge was removed. Recruits were PTing in tennis shoes and the boots and utes sessions were reduced. From what I've heard from friends of mine who've left the Corps fairly recently training is hard corps

 

[plc67]

.Damn thing posted before I was done. At any rate if half of what I read on this board is accurate Quantico is much more physically demanding than when I went through.
Bottom line: the Army will go back to more rigorous training. Hopefully the Marine Corps will never have to re-learn that lesson.