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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 >1 y ago
Responses: 147
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You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, Well Done. Our Next enemy either ISIS or the Chinese are trained very differently than we are. They are trained to Kill and take orders. If we attack a hill and have 75% casualties we fell we did not accomplish our mission. They did if they took the hill ! We take Air Superiority as granted, maybe in the near future, China will have it. Then what? Remember in the beginning of World War 2 Japan kicked our ass. You have to be mentally and physically tough to win the next war...................Semper Fi
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I think your post is fairly accurate. I was an Infantry Soldier for many years. From my perspective, the Marines do a great job instilling the warrior spirit in basic training. The Army, even in the Infantry do not. That being said, individual units (from division level down to the squad) can and frequently do produce high quality soldiers who have that same warrior spirit. It begins with standards being standards in the go to war units. They are not easy to achieve, nor are they compromised to accommodate those who cannot hack it. Basic training is just that, BASIC. The proof is in the pudding, though. Our soldiers have accomplished incredible exploits on the battlefield these many years of war. In Afghanistan and Iraq, those who have faced our soldiers have suffered. Being Army Strong is not just about being hyper motivated coming out of initial entry training, it's about taking the fight to the enemy and breaking him. Our Army soldiers have been doing that job admirably for 15 years straight.
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I agree also on a different matter regarding the Marines and the US Army-Why did the Army spend several millions in research to determining that the ACU was the best camo pattern and then in a matter of a very few years decides to change to a pattern that is very similar to the Marine camo pattern. In this case I feel a little sorry for the Officers who now have to purchase the new patter uniform. Another example-currently the Army is researching what the best sidearm should be and is proposing spending 300 million in R&D yet the Marines are driving on will probably use a weapon that is currently in production. I hate to say it but I'm sure there are other examples though as retired Army I hate to hand it to the Marines!!
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You've made some great points. Personally I attended some JROTC summer bootcamps that I thought were harder then Army BCT. In my JROTC camps I had rangers, airborne, green beret and navy seal instructors. I was in the Raider company which is the high school version of rangers. The navy seals weighed us down in web gear and unexpectedly pushed us into a lake from speeding boats where we had to use the quick releases to get the gear off and re surface, the green berets took us out into the forrest where we learned to ID edible plants and bugs, made shelters with our ponchos and slept in them for 2 days while doing obstacle courses and leadership courses during the day. In JROTC we did the entire obstacle courses in BCT they skipped obstacles deemed "to dangerous" or restricted how high you could go on some obstacles. The Army needs to toughen up it's sad that I received harder training in high school then the real Army. In high school I ruck marched at a forced pace with a ruck so heavy I had to roll over on my belly to stand up. In BCT my ruck was 40 pounds and not much bigger then a backpack. The slowest person was placed at the head of our marches and those who couldn't keep up were thrown in the back of a truck. I LOVE the U.S. Army and the brother/sisterhood but I have only seen the standards become more and more lax and generations of "entitled" soldiers joining the ranks thinking they have the "right" to question everything.
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My friend, I think you're looking at this wrong. I'm pretty sure this is a numbers game. The Army has huge numbers in budgeting and personnel compared to the Marines. This means they can afford a lot more in terms of billets/positions, equipment, responsibility, which leads to "compromises" in quality, because of the fact that is that the Army needs more personnel to man, train, and equip those positions, equipment, and responsibility. If you notice, the Marine Corps does not create it's own organic medical and religious personnel; in fact, if you look at our boating capacity, Marines only really operate AAVs, LAVs, and Zodiacs. Other amphibious personnel carriers are typically ran by either the Navy (for the most part) or in some instances the Army. This is because the Marine Corps can't afford to do so, both by budgeting, Title 10 authorities, and the like. The "brilliance in the basics" standpoint from square one for Marines is due to numbers; we are not allotted the same amount of personnel, so we do with what we got, and we start with the recruit. Because we can't afford to throw all the Corps' money and training into personnel, we indoctrinate to weed out those who can't hack it.
Take a look at the US Army's overall mission:
"The Army’s mission is to fight and win our Nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders. We do this by:
•Executing Title 10 and Title 32 United States Code directives, to include organizing, equipping, and training forces for the conduct of prompt and sustained combat operations on land.
•Accomplishing missions assigned by the President, Secretary of Defense and combatant commanders, and Transforming for the future."
IOT provide SUSTAINED combat operations on land, it becomes a numbers game. The Marine Corps cannot conduct long-term sustained operations effectively; we're not built that way. We work best in the operational/tactical realm, not the strategic. We can be utilized in the strategic realm, but usually in the initial portions of a conflict; while in recent wars, this hasn't been the case, it's how it's supposed to go. That's where the United States needs Marines; at the bleeding edge front line. The training we get keeps that edge. Now while it'd help, it is simply unnecessary for regular Army personnel that're conducting long term engagements. Not every Soldier is going to be cut out for front line combat activities, SOF engagements, or extremely specialized missions; this is why there's a regular Army. Why hold them to that higher standard when there's no operational necessity to do so? Those who want to pursue those higher tiers that are more than encouraged to do so, and standards at those units are exceptionally high, even compared to the Marines. The Rangers, for example, will "Release For Standards" anyone who doesn't meet the Ranger standard back into conventional Army. The Marine Corps will separate personnel from the Corps who can't meet the standard, but nowhere near with the quickness the 75th Ranger Regiment does; Marines will take months, Rangers in a day or two MAX.
At this point you're probably thinking I'm missing your initial point in regards to quality Soldiers; what I'm trying to get to you is that this is a numbers game in regards to training quality Soldiers to meet personnel requirements which the Army has a lot of to meet. This becomes a balancing act of how effectively should the Army train/indoctrinate their Soldiers (the more intense, the higher the attrition rate) vice not being able to meet those manning requirements which sets long term engagements up for failure. What I'd start looking at, instead of comparing Marines to Soldiers, is not just giving Soldiers the tools of the trade but more of the wisdom to utilize them effectively. Making Soldiers more "Marine-like" isn't going to help anyone. The Army needs quality Soldiers, but this can't be done by making them Marines. You can build a better culture. Take away the coddling. Hold Soldier initiates to higher standards of conduct. Develop their confidence in their actions and decision making, while under stress. Teach them how to "make a decision uphill", if it ever comes to that. Ingrain within them the importance of the title they hold and how they fit into the greater Army puzzle.
Take a look at the US Army's overall mission:
"The Army’s mission is to fight and win our Nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders. We do this by:
•Executing Title 10 and Title 32 United States Code directives, to include organizing, equipping, and training forces for the conduct of prompt and sustained combat operations on land.
•Accomplishing missions assigned by the President, Secretary of Defense and combatant commanders, and Transforming for the future."
IOT provide SUSTAINED combat operations on land, it becomes a numbers game. The Marine Corps cannot conduct long-term sustained operations effectively; we're not built that way. We work best in the operational/tactical realm, not the strategic. We can be utilized in the strategic realm, but usually in the initial portions of a conflict; while in recent wars, this hasn't been the case, it's how it's supposed to go. That's where the United States needs Marines; at the bleeding edge front line. The training we get keeps that edge. Now while it'd help, it is simply unnecessary for regular Army personnel that're conducting long term engagements. Not every Soldier is going to be cut out for front line combat activities, SOF engagements, or extremely specialized missions; this is why there's a regular Army. Why hold them to that higher standard when there's no operational necessity to do so? Those who want to pursue those higher tiers that are more than encouraged to do so, and standards at those units are exceptionally high, even compared to the Marines. The Rangers, for example, will "Release For Standards" anyone who doesn't meet the Ranger standard back into conventional Army. The Marine Corps will separate personnel from the Corps who can't meet the standard, but nowhere near with the quickness the 75th Ranger Regiment does; Marines will take months, Rangers in a day or two MAX.
At this point you're probably thinking I'm missing your initial point in regards to quality Soldiers; what I'm trying to get to you is that this is a numbers game in regards to training quality Soldiers to meet personnel requirements which the Army has a lot of to meet. This becomes a balancing act of how effectively should the Army train/indoctrinate their Soldiers (the more intense, the higher the attrition rate) vice not being able to meet those manning requirements which sets long term engagements up for failure. What I'd start looking at, instead of comparing Marines to Soldiers, is not just giving Soldiers the tools of the trade but more of the wisdom to utilize them effectively. Making Soldiers more "Marine-like" isn't going to help anyone. The Army needs quality Soldiers, but this can't be done by making them Marines. You can build a better culture. Take away the coddling. Hold Soldier initiates to higher standards of conduct. Develop their confidence in their actions and decision making, while under stress. Teach them how to "make a decision uphill", if it ever comes to that. Ingrain within them the importance of the title they hold and how they fit into the greater Army puzzle.
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The answer is obvious. We are a volunteer military. And while the Marines have never had recruiting problems/shortages, the other branches have. This is why USAF "grunts" are in combat now, females serving on submarines and kinder/gentler Army boot camp. Because people just aren't joining. Enlistment ages are expanded, tatoo's, etc. All because no one's joining. Were the Marines to experience manning shortfalls, then their talking heads and bean counters would board-room some changes. For now, the Dogs have no shortage of folk wanting to don the Khaki and Green and as the commercial says "be the ones running towards the gunfire and danger."
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In another thread, I have made very much the same arguments. It has been said the measure of how smart someone is ; is how much they agree with you. By that criterion: SSG Lon Watson is a very smart man.
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To the author I will say you are qualified to give your opinion but whether your qualified to make those statements is debatable. I'm curious to know why you didn't use a forum like AUSA, ARS (Army Retirement Services), etc., to voice your criticisms through the senior leadership up to the current SMA Daniel Dailey in order to address your perceptions and maybe affect some change if you were really concerned about today's soldier's in the Army. I'm retired and served from 1980 - 2000 and one thing I never forgot as a leader is the NCO CREED which has one the following excerpts: "I will be loyal to those with whom I serve; seniors, peers, and subordinates alike". You appear to be very hypocritical with this post considering your comments about your history with the Army. Posting these issues (which applies to all branches) on a social media site looks a bit self serving to me and benefits no one but you and your ulterior motives. I don't see the correlation between your duties as a prison boot camp drill sergeant and what's occurring in the basic training with the current Army. But since you were negligent and bias with your dissertation I feel it's my duty to enlighten the RallyPoint readers with some additional information of fact. As the largest of America's Armed Forces the Army also has a large amount of responsibilities with one of them being to train Marines (i.e, military police, combat engineers, armor, satellite communications, ranger training, airborne/air assault, military free fall, etc) which is something you failed to mention in your blog. How can you make comments about the current basic training in the Army (which is 9 weeks compared to 8 weeks in the 1980's) when you haven't even gone thru the current curriculum that today's recruits must pass. One thing I realized about the Army of today is that it's different then when I came in 1980, but today's soldier's are technical and tactically proficient and have proven it with 16 years of combat experience in the War on Terror. To you and your supporters basic training is one element of the game, winning wars is part of our fame which we continue to reign supreme as an Army Team!
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SSG Lon Watson
Well since you retired in 2000 I don't know how much you know about modern warfare. Also I really don't think you can speak for my motives unless you and God are homeboys. I write for Rally Point, my editor picks where my articles go, not me. And prison boot camp has A LOT of similarities to training troops for battle. And since I've done both I am qualified to comment. I'm also a published author and resercher and a SME on recruit training pipelines. I lead a consortium of 500 drill sergeants and drill instructors who report their frustrations to me frequently. I'm sounding an alarm, not being disloyal. Is it disloyal to wake up sleeping people in a burning building?
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Concur. At PI the whole thing and for the whole time is - WTF are you doing here? WHY ON EARTH do you think -you- could EVER be a United States Marine?
We graduated on a Monday morning. The previous Saturday I saw a DI in another platoon in our series choking a recruit - with his own crutch.
It made me shudder.
Walt
We graduated on a Monday morning. The previous Saturday I saw a DI in another platoon in our series choking a recruit - with his own crutch.
It made me shudder.
Walt
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SSG Lon Watson
Now I don't condone choking, but I get the idea. I was teaching BNCOC, OBC, and AIT at Ft Sam Houston, TX in 2002. The sex scandals with recruits blew by mind. A girl would say she was having sex with her drill sergeant and of course the DS would deny it. Then the girl would describe the inside of said drill sergeants house or apartment to the minute detail. Something she could only do if she'd been there. One girl described tattoos on the DS's body. Crazy.
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There is no doubt that the Marines, have and always had and will have the reputation of the toughest service. I do think the Army has moved in the right direction. Most of the soldiers I encounter today seem to have more of the "can-do" spirit and proud of what they do. When I see them it reinforces my pride in being a retired soldier. Just my impression. We a all a team that keep our country secure. Marines and special op troops obviously have tougher training, but the Air Force computer geek is still put of the team; (s)he may not have seen the physical rigors, but, nevertheless has the dedication to use his/her talent to serve our county and giving up better pay and probably more stable hours as a result.
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SSG Lon Watson
This is true sir. In fact the army just changed its POI. Drill and ceremony is back on the training schedule. They overhauled what soldiers learn.
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I had the privledge to attend BNCOC and attend some Marine Corps Schools on an Army base. I witnessed some of the Basic training routines of the Army and attended BNCOC with some of the Drill Sergeants.
The Marine's Boot Camp indoctrinates as well as trains recruits in basic skills. The discipline. attention to detail and sense of urgency is much higher.
What is the differences in the services? Here is my spin on it. The top 10% of all the services Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are all on par with each other as far as professionalism and being elite in their own way. The bottom 10% are equally worthless pieces of shit.
It is that other 80% where The Corps shines. In the other services the 80% consider themselves Billy, Bobby and Sue just marking time and doing a job. In the Corps they know they are above all a Marine.
The Marine's Boot Camp indoctrinates as well as trains recruits in basic skills. The discipline. attention to detail and sense of urgency is much higher.
What is the differences in the services? Here is my spin on it. The top 10% of all the services Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are all on par with each other as far as professionalism and being elite in their own way. The bottom 10% are equally worthless pieces of shit.
It is that other 80% where The Corps shines. In the other services the 80% consider themselves Billy, Bobby and Sue just marking time and doing a job. In the Corps they know they are above all a Marine.
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1stSgt Eugene Harless
When I was a DI I always Thrashed the recruits for the smallest things,, Shoes not aligned under their racks, pillow edges or display towell folds facing the wrong way. After a few weeks I finally let them in on the method of my madness. I had a recruit pushing because his shower shoes werent in the right order.
I asked him what his MOS was supposed to be. He said He was going to be in Avionics. I told him "Not if I can help it,,, why the fuck should the Marine Corps trust your dumb ass to work on a 30 Million Dollar Plane when you can't take care of a 50 cent shower shoe, dickhead?"
At that point the recruits started understanding the purpose behind the fuck fuck games.
I asked him what his MOS was supposed to be. He said He was going to be in Avionics. I told him "Not if I can help it,,, why the fuck should the Marine Corps trust your dumb ass to work on a 30 Million Dollar Plane when you can't take care of a 50 cent shower shoe, dickhead?"
At that point the recruits started understanding the purpose behind the fuck fuck games.
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PO3 Donald Murphy
You do get in to that mentality. And at the first time of emergency you do what you needed to do and remembered that it was that mean-ass DI's treatment that allowed you to do the best job ever and save your ass/ship/life.
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First, long of a post so long response. I don't buy any of this as an Army thing or Army wrong. This is a SSG Lon Watson thing. From your foxhole as a Chem NCO now picking up a Marine Corps book and questioning why the Army can't be like the Marines. Why would Chuck Norris wanna be like Bruce Lee? They're both awesome in their own way. I don't know what kind of Army basic training you went to in the 80s or you're referring to but my basic training in 91 with C 1-26 INF at Dix was hell and we didn't become Soldiers until graduation. And we damn sure were tough, proud and disciplined. Additionally as an Ordnance Soldier all our professional developmental schools were extremely challenging academically, physically, and in uniform and barracks standards. AIT, BNCOC and ANCOC all had barracks SOPs that were strictly enforced. Even after I went Warrant the Ordance Corps expectations continued to grow. Just being Airborne and even a Jumpmaster doesn't qualify you to make these comments. What kind of unit you're in and what's your mission there paints a better picture of your experience. I know many units in BRAGG especially in the 82nd ABN that are at a very minimum just as tough or tougher than any Marine unit out there. Yes the Army doesn't do a very good job now at indoctrinating (brainwashing) recruits but that's why it's important to have strong first line NCOs and leaders at permanent party units so they can build on what was started in basic. We are a huge organization with immense versatility and lots of moving parts. And we're the first ones to get cut or surged. I wish every unit in the Army was more like the 82nd ABN, 101st ABN, 4th ID, and 10th Mtn and that all new Soldiers would start there so they can "be all they can be" and be Army strong!
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SSG Lon Watson
If you read my comments, I excluded Airborne, Infantry, and the like from what I said. Also I wasn't talking about or insulting your experience in 1991. I was talking about NOW. Truthfully the 1990s were the golden age of basic training for the Army and you should be proud (and are) to be a part of it. My basic in the 1980s was tough for me, but anything would have been tough for me then. But the truth be told my basic was a bit lame compared to the 1990s. It was 1982 and we had a lot of vietnam era NCOs some good, some not good. As I observed in the 90s the quality of soldier was raising. I just think right now the warrior spirit is lacking.
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Wait until you read my women in combat arms and SOF article! It will be as thought provoking as this one! I'll probably get more hate mail than I already have.
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SSG Lon Watson
Sgt Richard Buckner - so you felt after I spoke up for the Marine Corps that this was fantasy fiction?
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Very in-depth and very insightful think-piece on the warrior ethos, Staff Sgt. A lot of good nuggets to chew on. But at the risk of oversimplifying the matter, consider this: Marines are essentially the shock troops of the U.S. military arsenal. The Army, which used to hold its own in that company, has become not so much the knife edge of the blade that swings, so to speak, as they are the rest of the sword that comes thereafter. The former is a fighting force, the latter is now an occupation force, although I would argue there are exceptions. Whereas Marines are, or were, by their very nature expeditionary, the Army, not least due to its size (as you mention above) is not in the business of expeditions. That translates into a much more visceral raison d'être in the case of our beloved USMC.
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The sole reason the Marine Corp can do that is because the other branches give them the luxury of not needing to train legions of support personnel. Hell, they don't even train their own medics, they have to go to the Navy for those.
What the Marines do is train infantry, and they are good at it. But you cannot equate a training program that has to turn out all kinds of personnel ranging from infantry to support personnel to one that has the pure luxury of training infantry.
What the Marines do is train infantry, and they are good at it. But you cannot equate a training program that has to turn out all kinds of personnel ranging from infantry to support personnel to one that has the pure luxury of training infantry.
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SPC Jonathan Schmidt
The point is that the Army has more support staff than the Marine Corp has staff at all. When you have to run an organization that much larger you lose the ability to be as picky. And that comes with a price.
Also, being the largest military branch by a large margin means that whenever someone in leadership decides to perform a social experiment it ends up being shoved onto the Army first. Just wait, the Corp's turn is coming shortly.
Also, being the largest military branch by a large margin means that whenever someone in leadership decides to perform a social experiment it ends up being shoved onto the Army first. Just wait, the Corp's turn is coming shortly.
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Cpl D L Parker
I don't think the size of the force matters. In basic you are teaching the fundamentals. The MOS things comes later. I hear bootcamp for Army infantry is different, if so why can't the Army train everyone the same.
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GySgt (Join to see)
Out of 186k Marines only about 25k of that is Infantry all the rest is support in some way or another. Just so people know where I numbers stand.
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Great read...great points...no additional commentary required. Just going to stand here clapping and basking in the "true" doled out here.
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While I agree with your research, the ONLY thing I disagree with is Army reception. And the ONLY reason for that is because when I came through Ft. Sill, there were a few prior-service Marines as my drill sergeants. I FRICKIN' LOVED IT! Reminded me of a slightly nicer version of the boot camp stories my grandfathers told me from Montford Point. And ALL of the drill sergeants I had in Bravo Battery, 1/40 Field Artillery were on the same page, playing the same tune, regardless of where they came from. I came through BCT in 2000. By 2002, I noticed a HUGE difference between those I came through with and those making their way into the Army. I may have been one of the last of a great era. Beyond that, amigo, well done! I really appreciate you sharing this with us!
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What's up with that trooper in front of the firing line? Is he Marine or Army?
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