Should trainees be allowed to quit basic training?

I concur. But how do we measure the work vs investment amounts?

SPC (Join to see) - Pay for all recruiting, travel, uniforms, and training costs received. There may be some outstanding costs but that at least would be an honest effort.

Sir, respectfully, were you referring to ME as the snowflake? Or a hypothetical trainee that dropped themselves out of BCT?

Snowflake was a direct reference to people who decide they want to be in the military and then don't have what it takes to make the commitment. There are a lot of want-a-be's out there, and we don't need them in our Services. I apologize if you mis-interperted my comment. It's like when I arrived at Airborne School. The first time I thought it was too hard, and maybe not for me, I looked to my left and then to my right, and told myself that I was no lesser a Soldier then they were, so suck it up buttercup and do your best, and then do more.

COL George Antochy, on that, we concur. There are a great many things in life that we often underestimate. The measure of a man's mettle is how he handles the unexpected difficulty and overcomes it, rather than how loudly he complains about the struggle.

Do not mistake me, there have been many times in my life where I simply wanted to complain. There wasnt a solution, and no way to make it easier, but merely the ability to complain about it made it a bit more bearable. But these days, it certainly seems like the threshold for difficulty had greatly downgraded to assimilate a softer and more emotion-based soldier into a culture of nurture, rather than nature. Personally, I think that when it comes to thing like war, nature is the very key to survival. You adapt, adjust, evolve and overcome, or you die. Sadly, it seems a great many leaders, at several levels, have forgotten this, or simply ignored it out of fear of complaints or PC retaliation.