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Today, I may make some people mad. But what I want to address is vitally important.
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.
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.
Marine Corps
Culture
Standards
Command Post
Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 147
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SPC Cesar Freytes
I have enough Vaseline to take what's coming but I went through army basic in the mid 80s before that I did coast guard training not fun mental SAVE SAVE SAVE KILL KILL KILL Thank god for medicinal pot or the placebo church
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Sgt (Join to see)
SGT Brent McPeek -YEP=and WELL= who gives a shit ?? I know quite a few Marines/ Raiders/F Recon and even SEALs that would say keep your "rope" and we will keep what we Earned and our traditions united as well. EGA and wearvthem in the skin as well. Get the rope tat .
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I like the essay length comparison on us and the Marine Corp. I like your call to action, we can always be harder and examine our culture for its weak spots. I would provide this to counter balance:
188,800 - Marine Corp Strength
490,000 - Army End Strength
348,000 - Army Guard Strength
198,000 - Army Reserve Strength
+/- a few thousand depending on what year you are talking but the Total Army is close to a million people. Not sure your going to find that many people that want to be birthed in a 56 hour hell week.
A Guardsman is made in 9 weeks of basic training and given 4 months of prep and a mob site refresher the citizen Soldier is ready to deploy. Guard units do well enough that the new Chief of Staff of the Army says in public that America will never go to war without the Guard again.
I'd also say that what you want costs some money. 546,000 Reserve Component soldiers...who all go to the same Army Basic training... costs some cash. Thats transparent to the Active Duty Soldier who is getting paid a salary 24/7 but we get to paying extra for all of those RC soldiers to be on orders- a 9 week basic training is just fine. An additional 4 weeks of training for ~50,000 RC troops going to basic every year would be about a $75 Million dollar price tag in base salary alone ($1566 for an E-1 per month).
I would propose that our roots are more good ol' boy farmer willing to pick up a gun than Spartan. The Army is a wide cross section of the population it defends. The Marine Corp is a special subset of people willing to be indoctrinated into that culture.
P.S. Marines are cool and i like what you write here despite my counter statements above.
188,800 - Marine Corp Strength
490,000 - Army End Strength
348,000 - Army Guard Strength
198,000 - Army Reserve Strength
+/- a few thousand depending on what year you are talking but the Total Army is close to a million people. Not sure your going to find that many people that want to be birthed in a 56 hour hell week.
A Guardsman is made in 9 weeks of basic training and given 4 months of prep and a mob site refresher the citizen Soldier is ready to deploy. Guard units do well enough that the new Chief of Staff of the Army says in public that America will never go to war without the Guard again.
I'd also say that what you want costs some money. 546,000 Reserve Component soldiers...who all go to the same Army Basic training... costs some cash. Thats transparent to the Active Duty Soldier who is getting paid a salary 24/7 but we get to paying extra for all of those RC soldiers to be on orders- a 9 week basic training is just fine. An additional 4 weeks of training for ~50,000 RC troops going to basic every year would be about a $75 Million dollar price tag in base salary alone ($1566 for an E-1 per month).
I would propose that our roots are more good ol' boy farmer willing to pick up a gun than Spartan. The Army is a wide cross section of the population it defends. The Marine Corp is a special subset of people willing to be indoctrinated into that culture.
P.S. Marines are cool and i like what you write here despite my counter statements above.
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SFC Bruce Menard
MSgt Roger Settlemyer - Every marine is trained as a rifleman, but not every marine is trained as an infantryman.
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I'm pretty sure every former Marine wearing an Army uniform just leaned back and said "FINALLY! Someone said it!".
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SFC(P) (Join to see)
SSgt (Verify To See) - Wow your female part must hurt. I am now and ALWAYS have been proud to be an AMERICAN Soldier. I have served with just about every Branch. And you are no better than the next. The Hype has to stop and give credit where credit is due. And If you disrespect me again SSG. I would like to meet you.
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Sgt (Join to see)
SFC Mark Klaers - BE GLAD TO SHOW YOU .BTW HAVE YOU BEEN TO QUANTICO S/S SCHOOL/TRAINING .FUNNY I DIDNT HEAR MUCH "whining "there
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Sgt (Join to see)
SFC(P) (Join to see) - what kind of "respect"is it you felt you were not given by the Gunnery Sgt. ? Especially since you infer, if you don't GET IT you throw some half assed grease monkey challenge out to him which that in of itself shows No respect from your comments.===Also a joke. Where would like to "meet up" to get YOUR respect you have shown very little of yourself? Where at by the way? The auto body pit? lol
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You got me with "Today, I make some people mad". I read the next paragraph and tapped out.
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SSG Lon Watson
Drill Instructors Terrorize Recruits During Initial Drill Video
Watch drill instructors mercilessly lay into would-be Marines in this video of initial drill.
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LCpl Darrell J. Farley Jr.
SSG Lon Watson you can’t rest your defense on videos of some pussy who can’t take constructive criticism! I’m a third Generation Marine and the son of a Drill Instructor during the Vietnam War ( Korean War Combat Veteran) My time at MCRD was “Kinder and Gentler than right after the Tet Offensive, And I got my Ass kicked on a daily basis!!! Preparing a Marine Recruit fo Combat is meant to be brutal!!!
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Cpl Clinton Britt
SSG Lon Watson the military as a whole is becoming to PC as much as I hate to say it MC Boot Camp is not as tough as it used to be......Drill Instructors have to follow very strict guidelines when handling recruits now
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SSG Lon Watson - I'd give you two "thumbs up" on this one --First, because it's mostly about Marines; Second, because you've touched on some fundamental differences.
Couple of thoughts:
1.) The Corps' lack of size is a HUGE advantage. Training to be very focused to the numbers in the training cycle. This lack of size also allows for continued "warrior" training (like MCT & annual weapons' qualification).
2.) Indoctrination - I can only defer to the reflections of Rudyard Kipling: "Body and Spirit I surrendered whole to harsh instructors... and received a soul." Yep, earning that title and the EGA is special --because we make so.
In rating your post, I offer the seldom seen "Bullseye Award." Poignant.
Couple of thoughts:
1.) The Corps' lack of size is a HUGE advantage. Training to be very focused to the numbers in the training cycle. This lack of size also allows for continued "warrior" training (like MCT & annual weapons' qualification).
2.) Indoctrination - I can only defer to the reflections of Rudyard Kipling: "Body and Spirit I surrendered whole to harsh instructors... and received a soul." Yep, earning that title and the EGA is special --because we make so.
In rating your post, I offer the seldom seen "Bullseye Award." Poignant.
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SSG Lon Watson
My gosh you Strobls are quite a family of warrior poets. I have been a fan of your brother's for years. You definitely have the Spartan blood!
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There is no right or wrong. The Army and Marine Corps are two different services with two different missions. The Army as a much larger force and has to deal with an economy of scales, this is one of the reasons the Army had to go with integrated (combined men and women) training in the early eighties.
The Marines are a much smaller force with an even smaller female population and therefore can afford to be more selective in its recruitment and intense in its training. Until now they have managed to keep the core training in boot camp sex segregated, but by order of the SecDef, that will be coming to an end.
Each of the services conducts its "basic" training to meet the needs of that service. The heavy emphasis on weapons training and combat training by the Marines and the combat MOS of the Army are not as critical to the rank and file Navy and Air Force personnel.
And not all Army Basic is the same. Infantry OSUT training at Fort Benning is much edgier than the BCT training at Jackson, Leonard Wood or Sill.
Like apples and oranges neither is wrong, just different.
The Marines are a much smaller force with an even smaller female population and therefore can afford to be more selective in its recruitment and intense in its training. Until now they have managed to keep the core training in boot camp sex segregated, but by order of the SecDef, that will be coming to an end.
Each of the services conducts its "basic" training to meet the needs of that service. The heavy emphasis on weapons training and combat training by the Marines and the combat MOS of the Army are not as critical to the rank and file Navy and Air Force personnel.
And not all Army Basic is the same. Infantry OSUT training at Fort Benning is much edgier than the BCT training at Jackson, Leonard Wood or Sill.
Like apples and oranges neither is wrong, just different.
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SSG Lon Watson
While I agree with what you're saying, the Army has always been a test bed for political correctness and touchy feely ideas. I know because of our size we will never train like the Marines completely, but we could change some things. Like recently one positive change was the change to army basic training POI. Drill and ceremony is BACK ON the training schedule. It had been taken off and trained only as opportunity training. It showed in soldier's marching ability. Now it's on the schedule and is evaluated (like Marines initial and final drill).
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CSM William Payne
You are correct. One of the issues is that the military in general and the Army specifically is finding and signing qualified recruits getting more and more difficult. And the Army has also recently announced that it will be concentrating on recruiting more females. When recruiting numbers go down, BCT becomes more trainee friendly and getting rid of hardcores in basic becomes more difficult. Relaxing standards on the front end always results in more problematic Soldiers on the back end. This runs in cycles going back as long as we have had a standing Army. Also as far back as the American Revolution and Baron von Steuben, D&C has been one of the standards of Army training and the introduction of discipline in converting civilians into Soldiers. It should have never been removed. This is why you have more Soldiers complaining about not being able to put their hands in their pockets instead of more pertinent issues of military life.
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LCpl Darrell J. Farley Jr.
CSM William Payne no disrespect intended, but in the Marines (in my day any way, early 80’s) if we had our hands in our pockets, the Gunny would yell,”TAKE OFF THEM GOD DA$&ED ARMY GLOVES!!!”
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It was a great culture shock to go from the Marines (0311) to the Air Force (Security Forces). Things that I saw in the AF that would have never been allowed in the Marine Corps included barracks that were trashed, yet no one wanted to take responsibility and leadership that could not be bothered to come in and handle the issue. Sure it was Saturday, but who cares, you dont toss your garbage off the 3rd floor, you dont throw beer bottles everywhere, and you dont leave chicken wing bones and empty pizza boxes in the day room. Any Marine NCO worth his salt passing such a sight would immediately beat down every door, hold a formation and have the place scrubbed top to bottom on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, the Gunny forgot something in his office and decided to come in at 0400 on Sunday morning. I saw kids that lived in one man rooms and then went downrange to sleep in 8 man tents and had coping issues. Marines think a tent is a luxury, and one with A/C is the freakin Taj Mahal. Hell, sleeping indoors is a luxury most Infantry Marines never expect to see when deployed. I shaved and bathed from canteen cups, but if the hot water went out, you thought the world was coming to an end, same with the laundry facilities, never mind that some Wisk, a GI Brush and elbow grease will get clothes clean enough. Kids would starve rather than eat an MRE, and certainly not a cold one. We are not doing these kids any service by pampering them at home, then placing them in austere locations and expecting the same level of performance. They need to learn to do it quick and dirty, on little sleep, in the rain and mud. If they can do it there, they can do it anywhere. But we are doing it backwards, training them in comfort and then sending them off into a messy world. Let's stop that nonsense.
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SSgt Thomas Crosser Jr.
Well, putting my damn foot down and doing something about this. In a moment of either clarity or insanity (and I just beat the shit out of a heart attack on May 4th, probably both) I got ordained and became the newest VSO for American Legion Post #29 in Glendale, AZ. Also a member of the Thundering Third Association. You call, we haul baby, and if you are in enough trouble, I'll bring a company with supporting arms! Bang Steel Baby and never forget you are a fuckin Rock Star! And yeah, God says you can say shit like that.
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MSgt Roger Settlemyer
Well said SSgt Crosser. Isn't a SSgt USAF an E-5. In the Marines he an E-6. In Alaska I went to the Air Force Mess Hall, I was presented to a Menu, I could not believe it. Buy the way the food was great.
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Guys I've been in several joint units and Marine discipline is always high. Instead of getting butt hurt, we need to ask ourselves why there is only high discipline and motivation in Infantry, airborne, Ranger and other combat units? Why doesn't the garden variety soldier have that spartan spirit?
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MAJ Byron Oyler
You are wrong that high discipline and motivation are only in the units you listed. Reading what you wrote you are very biased and very much a soldier and not a Marine. I have received the disrespect you write about only from soldiers, never a Marine. Sounds to me you missed the Marine Corps bus and was stuck with the Army. You should take the time to really learn about the branches and understand them. The Army is much larger with a much bigger mission than the Marine Corps and this size significantly complicates things. I am a fat POG you would not see in the Marine Corps but I can tell you not one Marine has given two shits downrange when I was there helping keep them or their buddies alive. I can shoot pretty good and have seen inside a body bag more than a few times. The main difference between my buddies in combat service support and combat arms is we are little more quiet about killing and focus more on the greater needs of the combat arms soldier. Don't let that be mistaken that all of us if given a rifle could not kill and that we are not disciplined.
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SPC (Join to see)
Maybe the garden variety soldier doesn't need that spirit to do a good job. I think nurses, cooks, admin personnel, etc. can do their job effectively and to a high enough standard without needing to be indoctrinated the way Marines are, so let's save the resources for where they are truly needed- combat positions.
However, I do believe that this kind of indoctrination would be good for WLC/ALC/SLC
However, I do believe that this kind of indoctrination would be good for WLC/ALC/SLC
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Sgt (Join to see)
See right there. Its about the JOB in the Army. Everyone forgets the military is there to win wars. There is no longer a rear area in a war zone. Ever cook, admin etc needs to schooled hard in combat.
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MSgt Roger Settlemyer
Easy, A Marine Admin Clerk and a Marine Infantry have the same uniform. No Difference. So when we are in uniform the pride shines threw. We earned the Eagle Globe and Anchor. I have a lot of respect for the Army, but the best troops I ever served with were British Gurka's.
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Excellent post. Some folks think Marine Corps Boot Camp is brain washing, but that is not correct. It is training to give you the best chance to survive and succeed whatever the mission. These lessons have a lasting effect, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine." Semper Fi!
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MGySgt James Forward
Concur and it last's your entire lifetime and beyond. We are also students of past war's, what worked in 300BC in Greece is still relevant today. We also remember the past, attend a Marine Corps Ball on Nov 10th and you will experience esprit de Corps!
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I can't speak to all of it, but having been through both Army basic training and Marine Corps boot camp, I can say that most of it is valid.
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