I have been a drill instructor in a prison boot camp (an adult penitentiary down South) for over six years now. We train and rehabilitate non-violent offenders using a 105-day military style boot camp. Before that, I served for 21 years in the regular Army and worked a gig for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) anti-terrorism training organization for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
During my military career, I served two tours in South Korea (one of which was retro-actively considered a combat tour because of the unanticipated battle on 23 November 1984), one tour in Germany, two Middle East combat tours, and a total of five and half years as a paratrooper and jumpmaster. I say all this not to spout out my resume, but so that I can assure you that I am absolutely qualified to make the statements I am about to make.
In the last six and a half years since I took on this job, I have been studying to become a drill instructor. Where did I go for my research? The Marine Corps.
I have always been fascinated by the Marines. In fact, I have served alongside them on several occasions. I began reading articles, watching hours and hours of video, and speaking with many Marines (drill instructors and non-drill instructors alike).
Over time, I have become a bit of a self-proclaimed, self-educated expert on Marine training: what they do, how they do it, why they do it, when they do it, etc. In the process of studying their training, I have come to several conclusions. I have also come to several conclusions about the Army, some not so good – some are downright scary.
Here are the things I have learned through my extensive research:
1. The Army runs a softer, “human dignity based” reception and receiving when the recruits arrive. The reception is so weak that it sets a very bad tone for the remainder of not just their training, but for their whole career in the Army. Recruits show up to a firm welcome by the drill sergeants and staff, but it’s not the controlled mayhem of a Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD). In fact, it seems to comfort and reassure soldiers as if to say “calm down and relax, it’s going to be all right.” Now that is all right if that is a message from your mother, but it’s not okay when we are trying to build the next generations of Spartans.
Marine receiving, on the other hand, is a “shock theater” from the minute they get off the bus through their graduation. The mayhem starts when their feet hit the “deck” and it never ever lets up. The discipline and stress is through the roof! The Army reception staff occasionally get perplexed as if to say “silly Private, get over here...shucks, what are you doing?”
In an MCRD, the recruit would be screamed at: ”GET OVER HERE! TOO SLOW, GO BACK! GET OVER HERE! STOP EYEBALLING ME! GET YOUR HEELS TOGETHER! Hey there was something you were supposed to say when told to do something, WHAT WAS IT? RESPOND!…AYE AYE SIR! RESPOND!”
See the difference? Here’s what I always say: weak pick up, weak recruits, strong pick up, strong recruits. That means if you “go in punching,” so to speak, the recruits know you mean business, you are not playing, and you are tougher than they are. You want them to be nearly peeing their pants from fear and stress.
The Army feels we need to treat people with dignity and respect and that people will shut down if screamed at too much. If that were true, the Marines have been doing it wrong since about 1952. That’s around the time that the Smokey bear hat and the structured chaos of boot camp kicked into gear. Don’t get me wrong: the Marines always wrote the book on discipline, but during the 1950’s the MCRDs really stepped up their game.
2. The tone the Army sets in basic training is wrong. The Army trains; the Marines indoctrinate. Do you see the difference? The Marines initiate the recruit into a culture, the Army trains them in tasks. Sure, the Army has core values that are really good. The values make sense and they are motivating, but the Marines ingrain it deeper into a youngster’s soul.
While the Army does change the person’s life, it does not instill the intrinsic values in the same way that the Marines do. Unless you are in an elite Army unit like Infantry, Airborne, Rangers, Special Forces, or Delta, you just don’t have the warrior ethos that the Army claims it builds. If you are a motivated gung-ho individual and you are not in an elite unit, the Army (or at least fellow soldiers) treat you like an oddball. How do I know this? I have spent a total of about 30 years around it, and I have been in Airborne, Infantry, and attached to Special Ops units, as well as regular units. In the Marines, gung-ho motivation is business as usual. You stand out if you aren’t highly motivated.
3. The Marines base their training on indoctrinating the individual into the core values of the Marines. Their training relies heavily on close order drill. They believe that drill instills a sense of teamwork and attention to detail that no other activity can. Drill teaches an individual that there are immediate consequences for an individual’s actions on their group. In other words, when one guy messes up a movement, it doesn’t go unnoticed. That soldier makes his squad look bad, that squad affects the platoon, and so on. Have you ever seen one guy in a formation either doing something late or doing the wrong movement? It sticks out like dog balls!
Now take this concept - that my actions affect the group as a whole - and apply it to war. If I move and am seen by the enemy, I may not just get myself killed, but my whole squad, platoon, company, etc. When you train with that kind of attention to detail, you are disciplined.
The Army conducts impeccable training in close order drill. In fact, the largest source of failure for students at the drill sergeant school is testing of the drill modules. So why does the Army not march as well as the Marines and why is marching not as high a priority in the Army?
4. The Army introduces combat skills earlier than the Marines do. The Army trains more combat tasks in its basic training that the Marines. Now while this may seem like a good idea, it’s really not. Teaching combat tasks before a person is fully indoctrinated in the love of corps and country is a very bad idea. It's like letting a kid who just learned how to drive enter a NASCAR race. The kid may have great skills, coordination, and reflexes, but the reality is that they have only been driving less than a year.
The Marines realize that indoctrination in the love of God, Country, and Corps has priority over learning “nuts and bolts” training. In fact, if a person is properly indoctrinated, they can be taught the other skills too, ultimately mastering them with more zeal than a person who had not been indoctrinated.
Keeping this in mind, the Marines focus on just a few things in boot camp but they drive those few things home. Drill, core values, marksmanship, fighting spirit, physical fitness, and teamwork are really all you learn in Marine Boot Camp. If a recruit masters these, the rest is strictly academic. They learn the more advanced combat skills in a course called Marine Corps Combat Training (MCT).
The Army on the other hand doesn’t get as in-depth with marksmanship, although they do get proficient at shooting, but then focus on assaulting objectives, fire and maneuver, and other combat tasks Marines don’t see until much later. The Army has removed bayonet fighting from basic training based on the rationale that you are not issued a bayonet downrange (slang term for deployed combat area) and no one uses bayonets in combat anymore.
The Marines approach this concept differently. The Marines believe that bayonet drills and bayonet sparring (pugil stick fighting) instill a killer instinct that can be obtained no other way. The Marines then integrate their bayonet fighting into their own indigenous martial art called MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program). This fighting system employs the concept of “one mind, any weapon.” A motivated Marine can pick up a shovel and kill the bad guys like Sampson swinging a donkey’s jawbone. Why? Because he is indoctrinated in the art and mentality of a warrior. The Army trains warfare - make no mistake - but it takes the front seat over indoctrination.
5. Everything in Marine Boot Camp is done with speed, intensity, and volume. In Army basic you are required to move very fast, but the tone is different. The Marines “count down” every task in boot camp. That means they say “go” or “ready move” and then you have an allotted amount of time to accomplish the task. If you don’t finish in time, you do it again, and again, and again. I saw more count downs in Airborne School than Army basic training.
I think the reason we don’t do this in the Army as much as the Marines do is because of time constraints. We have much bigger platoons and companies in Army basic training and fewer drill sergeants (or DI if you prefer) than the Marines do. You have somewhere to be and you have more skills to learn and there isn’t enough time to keep putting pants on in less than 30 seconds. But look at it this way: the Marines take a longer period of time (13 weeks in the Marines versus the Army’s 9-10 weeks) to train fewer skills and indoctrinate the mind, body, and soul of the recruit.
This might also explain why we do not spend as much time on drill in Army Basic Training. There are lots of skills to be taught and very little time to do so. Every Army unit I have ever served with has been weak in drill. Sure, we can march from point A to point B, but anything beyond that and we need to rehearse. Why? Because in the Army we do not emphasize drill like we ought to. Drill needs to be on the training schedule like PT or any other task. But we do it in basic training and then we let it go.
6. The Marines use a “rebirth system,” so to speak. Marines are not called Marines verbally or in any other way until they have “earned the title.” The Army calls their recruits “soldiers” from day one.
The Marines understand that you are not a full-fledged Marine until you have earned the insignia of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor (the EGA as Marines call it). This is not done until the very last week in which recruits participate in an event called The Crucible. This is a 56 hour “gut check.” Recruits undergo a hell week, a series of combat team tasks over that 56 hour period on very little food and sleep.
These tasks are not complex. We are not talking about a huge military strategy here. We are talking about moving ammo cans over an obstacle course, evacuating a casualty under fire through the sucking mud, and getting a squad over a distance with obstacles and difficult terrain.
The crucible awards a “badge” or “award”… the EGA. There is a “becoming” associated with graduating Marine Boot Camp. It’s like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon as a butterfly or in this case, emerging as an elite warrior. This attitude follows the Marine for the rest of his or her life. It is a significant and emotional event that is never ever forgotten. In order to get that similar effect in the Army, you would have to go to Airborne or even Ranger school.
We must find a way to raise the bar in the Army. We must find a way to make the Army an elite concept. It must become more than a catchy slogan “Army Strong” and a way to make money for college. We must return to the Spartan roots that made us great. Because right now? We are not great.
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SSG Scott (original post)
I suppose it depends on the MOS a soldier signed up for, yes we are all infantry first but let's be honest, I chose to drive trucks for a living over being an infantry man. I say that to say this, I am quite sure those in the Army that love or want an elite challenge are in the respected MOS to be able to do so i.e Infantry, Rangers ,Special Forces etc. etc.
My reply to SSG Scott,
Having read your comment, I think you and I are the most comparable to prove the point the author was making.
As you said, you chose to drive trucks for the Army instead of being an infantryman...and I made the same choice when I joined the Marine Corps. Having earned the title Marine, we realized that there is nothing more "respected" about one MOS over the other. We are equals no matter what the MOS (though there is bantering), each individual supports the mission objective, to achieve success and are trained / given opportunities as a "Marine" not an MOS. To this point, though my MOS is Motor Transport and I have served in the capacity throughout my career, I am also a Navy/Marine Corps Parachutist, Pathfinder, Marine Combat Instructor (at the School of Infantry), Fire-support coordinator, and Anti-Terrorism Officer, all of which are secondary to being "respected" as a Marine.
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I reposted this because in my opinion, this an excellent example of the point SSG Watson is trying to make. Myself and SSG Scott are the same MOS, but how we view our place (i.e. MOS respect within our service) is viewed through differing lenses. Marines identify as "Marines" first and foremost, not Infantry, Airborne, Special Ops, ect. Our warrior ethos are derived from each individual "earning the title" and maintaining the standard from that moment on with a common "collective spirit" no matter the occupation. No "Marine" is respected over another, from Private to General we are one, as Marines. Hence "Once a Marine, always a Marine", signifying our singular identity.
Semper Fi
Gysgt. Hafenbrack
USMC RET
When we were training very seriously for combat in Gulf War I at The Basic School, and lawyers and pilot wannabes were having their contracts for their MOSes voided and they were being sent to combat MOS Schools (IOC., Tank School, and Arty School, and CSS) we got a Visit from some Frozen Chosin Marine Corps 1st Division Vets, who told us that as scared as they were of dying or being horribly wounded in the "fighting retreat to the coast and evacuation" what else was on their minds??? They did not want to go down in the History Books as the FIRST and ONLY Marine Corps Division to surrender en mass to surrender to an enemy force. Let that sink in for a moment.
That was the same fighting spirit that the 101st Airborne Acting CG McAuliffe, expressed in his Reply Note and one line answer to the Krauts when they asked him to surrender his division at Bastogne - NUTS!
Or as BG Chesty Puller said in a similar situation:
We're surrounded.
That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.
Now we can fire in any direction,
those bastards won't get away this time!
And Major General Oliver Smith, CG, First Marine Division and all UN Forces at The Frozen Chosin Resevoir Battle of the Korean War:
Retreat, hell!
We're attacking in a different direction!
-When the Communist Chinese threw 270,000 troops into the Korean War, numerous U.N. divisions were overrun. Eight Chinese divisions engaged the 1st Marine Division. In the face of "General Winter" and overwhelming numerical superiority, the division concentrated promptly, rescued and evacuated surviving remnants of adjacent, less ready Army formations, and commenced one of the greatest marches of American history, from Chosin Reservoir to the sea.
Sixteen days later, having brought down its dead, saved its equipment, and rescued three Army battalions, the 1st Marine Division - supported by the 1st Marine Wing - reached the sea with high morale and in fighting order. The division had shattered the Chinese Communist Forces 9th Army Group, killed at least 25,000 Chinese, and wounded more than 12,500.
Every Marine reads about, hears about, and ingests these Living History examples of what Marines before them have done and are capable of doing. The Battle of Bealleu Wood in WWI where the Marines won their nickname of Devil Dog (Teufel Hunden in German), Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The Frozen Chosin Reservoir battle in Korea, The Marines in Vietnam at Hue City or their defense in the Battle of Khe Sanh, Gulf War I, the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, the battle for Falluja in 2004, and their many engagements in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Every Marine understands that they have inherited the success of the Marines who have come before them, and they are instilled with the idea that it would be better to be dead than let the Marines who have come before them down. It is in many ways just like that line from the movie a Few Good Men, Marines ARE fanatical about being Marines. They are also fanatical about improving the Marine Corps in any way, small or large, and they learn about the innovators and Mavericks who have served in the Marine Corps, and there is an active intellectual debate and discussion, not just in the Professional Journal, The Marine Corps Gazette, but at squad, platoon and company levels, and at the professional Development Schools for Marine Officers from Amphibious War College to Command and Staff College and the Naval War College about what changes need to be made to keep the Marine Corps strong and "The Best." This starts with the expensive commitment to send all Marine Officers through The Basic School's Basic Officer Course, Warrant and regular/reserve Commissioned Officers all have to graduate from TBS to go to flight school, or in my case, Naval Justice School or whatever their follow on MOS school is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir

Battle of Chosin Reservoir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as the Chosin Reservoir Campaign or the Changjin Lake Campaign (Korean: 장진호 전투(長津湖戰鬪); Chinese: 长津湖战役; pinyin: Cháng Jīn Hú Zhànyì),[c] was a decisive battle in the Korean War. "Chosin" is the Japanese pronunciation of the Korean name, "Changjin". The UN forces relied on Japanese language maps dating from their occupation of Korea which had only ended five years earlier at the conclusion of World War...
It would be really interesting to see when the Army instituted the different BCTs tailored for the different end MOSes, and see how (or if) the Army changed in some perceptible and measurable way when they got away from a standardized BCT that had the exact same standards of training for its recruits to meet in order to graduate. My wild guess it this occurred when the army transitioned away from draftee accessions to the AVF in the early 1970s and the Army had a really hard time recruiting and graduating a sufficient number of recruits to maintain its recruiting goals.
That said, I remember being a "Beast" and couldn't be called Cadet until the end of summer.
3rd AAV Bn 1st MAR DIV 3rd FSSG!!!
The Doc had better gear than the crew!!! Sandbags under his seat, new Body Armor,(Vietnam issue in 1983) new CVC Helmet And comms, And 2 sets of seat pads!!! Even scrounged a field desk for him to keep our shotcards nice and safe!!! (Woe be unto the Jarhead what pisses off the DOC!!! Marine, I can’t find your shot card!! Come see me after chow!”
Then there's the 82d, where I spent the last two years. It lives up to the reputation, and while there's a lot of Kool-aid over there, my impression of Division is that the people speaking poorly of it are either long-haired pipe-swingers or jealous.
And the last Army is SOF, which is much more like the 82d than urban legend says. Even the guys I know who came from behind the fence act like Division guys, just generally more mature.
I wouldn't want to trust my life to the first Army, but I've never served in it. I've only served in the other two.
That being said, the first Army is a maneuver force where individual Soldiers do not, and rarely ever will, make a difference. The first Army is designed to fight at an operational/strategic level, using companies and battalions as maneuver elements in fights conducted by brigade or larger elements. The first Army uses armored divisions to smash the enemy, and motorized and mechanized infantry to clean up; everyone else there - even dismounted infantry - is an enabler.
The second Army, the airborne and air assault army, is designed to fight in squads, platoons, and companies, with battalions performing roles that would be filled by brigades in the first Army. Everyone who is not a light infantryman is an enabler. This Army has (in general) significantly higher standards of personal discipline because it has to: junior soldiers are much more likely to end up in roles that a higher-ranking individual would normally fill - who knows if an NCO's going to end up in every LGOP?
The third Army is, or should be, the "grownup" army and is a force of individuals working together as teams. It is not and does not have maneuver elements, and is entirely enablers with the exception of a few direct-action forces (75th; SEALs; SMU). The third Army is also a joint force, so it's not really an Army.
The Marines are like the second Army, if the second Army never had to swap personnel with the first.
Just my .02. It's purely opinion and a little doctrine.
To clarify, I was specifically referring to a conventional, combined-arms, force-on-force fight.
- Light units don't have 'devastating' firepower, and aren't designed to engage tanks. FM 3-90 lays out the intent of the IBCT, SBCT, and ABCT. Paragraph 1-1 describes the responsibilities of the IBCT.
- I don't think I said ABN and AASLT units aren't maneuver units; I said they maneuver differently.
- ABN/AASLT fight at smaller levels because it's almost impossible for brigades and divisions to maintain cohesion after an airborne assault. That's what LGOPs are for. Normally, a platoon should never engage by itself, with no support, in a conventional fight, but LGOPs don't really have a choice.
- Okay, battalions perform battalion roles. The role of an airborne battalion is not the same as the role of a non-airborne battalion because only ABN/AASLT units can perform vertical envelopment. Normally a battalion shouldn't operate by itself because battalions (except BTFs) don't have the resources to effectively engage a combined-arms threat. ABN/AASLT battalions don't have much of a choice.
- AFG and Iraq aren't conventional fights, so the doctrine used there is obviously not the same as for a force-on-force engagement.
As far as doctrine goes, I'm looking at FM 3-90 (the BCT); FM 3-99 (Airborne Operations); and the old FM 7-100 series that refer to Soviet (and now OPFOR) tactics. The old FMs haven't been updated, but the basis of Soviet combined-arms operations haven't changed either, except to incorporate UW in Crimea.
first, the Army 9-10 weeks and the Marine Corps 13 weeks are not exactly accomplishing the same thing. The Marine Corps 13 weeks results in every Marine being a basic Infantryman, and future MOS training comes on top of that, so I would argue the point about the luxury of time. Army Infantry OSUT is 13 weeks. I'd relate it to that instead of just a plain-jane 10 week boot camp. Time is of the essence for EVERYTHING in Marine Corps Basic training. Also, who told you that Marine Recruits get 30 seconds to put on their pants (Trousers)?? Hell, if they had given me 30 seconds to put on my trousers, I could have slept another 20 seconds!
At any rate, the point of my post was to relate it to the army, which has a format of a 13 week OSUT (one station unit training) for Infantry which is 8 weeks of basic and the remainder of Infantry skills training. I didn't go to Army basic or AIT, but I can tell you that coming from a USMC aviation MOS going to the Army as an 11B, my "new guy" Infantry skills were at least equal to most guys I ran across who were coming out of Army Infantry OSUT.
The Corps instills a sense of confidence and invisibility in every Marine. You are trained to believe there is nothing you can't achieve or accomplish, no matter how difficult the situation. You adapt, improvise, and overcome!
It doesn't mattet if we are the best or if anyone else thinks we sre the best; we know and believe we are the best and will accept any challenge.
There is something special about the title, United States Marine!
"...No disrespect to the Army, but I did not enjoy working with them, they tended to be slovenly and lazy..."
You just grouped all Soldiers into a "slovenly and lazy" group, but you preface your statement by saying, "No disrespect to the army". How is anyone able to deduct anything other than disrespect?
Gentlemen, we are all brothers and sisters! Poking fun at other services is okay, let's not make it personal.
The same reasons as always: time and money. This really can't be an issue you're having, right? I mean, you see where our budgets are going, and the fact remains that nobody asks the Human Resources Specialist or Paralegal to walk a combat patrol anymore than I'd ask an 11B to process court martial proceedings. Does every MOS need to be proficient with basic Soldier skills and tasks? Of course, but the entire USMC is built around expeditionary warfare, whereas, we have a Corps within the Army (XVIII Airborne) for that purpose, and within the legacy divisions of that formation, I defy you to show a lack of discipline, tactical and technical expertise and esprit de corps.
And our special operations capabilities AND capacity are far larger, which we manage to achieve despite your assertion that our initial entry system is flawed.
Next question.
"...mold Marines in a fiery furnace..." Right. So your argument is that we need to make Basic suck more so that I get a bunch of brainwashed primates (with opposable thumbs and M4s) who are incapable of thinking independently?
Maybe I'm biased, as I AM a part of the Airborne and SOF communities, and am an alum of the 82d Airborne, but I don't need Soldiers who can't think. I train and expect Soldiers to be able to know and understand their operational environments and be able to deal with the political implications of our actions.
We have to train Soldiers for chess, not checkers, and you're talking about a perceived lack of "hooah" among support MOSs?
C'mon man. Those days are over.
The first thing I remember are the fire ants. Those little bastards were every where! In fact, I really don't remember not seeing one anywhere we went. One time, our Drill SGTs came out to inspect that our canteens were full of water and because several members of platoon had canteens that weren't totally topped off as instructed, we all ended up doing push ups. I remember looking down at my hands that were then covered with these small, painful jerks.
The second thing I remember is SSG Moran. He was our platoon's senior Drill Sergeant. He, like you, was involved in several deployments and like you, felt the need to instill the basics into us. Yes, he followed the doctrine as given to him but it seemed like our Platoon did everything differently. He, and the other drill sergeants in the platoon, were hard but fair. Completing a task was not only expected but demanded. If you failed to complete the task, you went to the end of the line and did it again. This went for everything. From marksmanship to shinning boots to making bed; nothing was done until they said it was done. It sucked at the time but through out my short 8.5 years in the Army, I remained thankful for this because I took to the units I was assigned and thankfully, I was always part of an effective team every where I went.
Yes, I can agree that my experience and the way I took it was not the norm. Yes, I agree that there are some much needed improvements needed not just in the Army but across the DoD when it comes to training. But I think the biggest the hurdle we as a collective face is this notion of a "new Army" or "today's Army". Just do a quick search on here. You'll see post after post after post asking "what is wrong with today's Army". To which my answer is and will remain this. The Army is a reflection of it's leadership; from the ones that wear stars to the ones that wear chevrons, the culture of the military is placed in our hands. We, the leaders, are the ones that shape "today's Army". We are the standard, the backbone of our beloved Army. The standards change if and only when we allow them to change.
Or 5 week artillery school. We preach safety, we pay lip service to maintenance, then are flabbergasted with our piss poor results.
I remember reading that the British basic training is 6 months long, they belong to a regiment their whole career. The Army plays some sort of game with regiments, here wear a crest, you belong to this regiment (what is that about anyways?). We have some real regiments, but by and large we don't have that, so do away with it once and for all.
Yes the Corp has a lot of pride, no doubt about it, but what is the incidence of offenses off post? Divorce factors, Anger management issues, UCMJ problems, how many BCD's are issued in the Corps?. Those are also indicators, and not good ones. Being treated like a subservient turd is not what a lot of people like for years on end. Not that Army doesn't have its own issues, because we do. The Corps does something right, and I am sure there are affair number behind that anchor globe and eagle who wish they had it a little better than how they are being treated then or now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNn9H1LR2Tw
Marine Corps Receiving Vs Army Reception
http://futurejarheads.org/ Marine Corps Receiving VS Army Reception.. Just some differences in the way things are done between the two branches
Hahaha, LOVED the Marine DS part, it reminded me of my basic and AIT when I went through way back in '87, only I used to get slapped and kicked.