Have we lost sight of the basics?

SGT Seets,

To be short, yes. What we have today is a is budget-sapped, contractor dependent, SHARP/EO paranoid, over-manned and under-trained force that executes COIN and full spectrum stability ops in a contingency environment with expertise, but may struggle in a conventional shooting war.

Such is the result of 13 years of combat in this environment. We will trim the fat, return to the basics, learn how to breach and clear a mined-wire obstacle, enter and clear a trench and establish a support by fire. We'll do annual CTC rotations and shoot until our fingers bleed. We'll get skinny again and kick Soldiers out who abuse the system as some sort of welfare and life support.

And this will the job of the NCO corps and the Junior officers who won't have a patch on their right sleeve. We'll get it done, though. Always do. RLTW.

I have to agree. I picked up my old 7-8 the other day and realized just how much of it soldiers don't use and, even worse, don't know. Those are the basic skills for being an infantryman and in my time most of them were never taught. We did Battle Drill 1A, usually not even to standard, and that was it. As an Airborne Infantryman we sort of practiced airfield seizure but none of the other missions the Airborne conducts when behind enemy lines. To me those were the basic skills necessary for my job and I was rarely, if ever, trained on them. It may sound counter-intuitive when conducting COIN but you have to know the basics before you get to the advanced stuff.