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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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you nailed it! Every Marine is a rifleman. A soldier is defined by the MOS it seems.
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CPO (Join to see)
You know what, I have read all the comments, and was not going to make one due to my being in the Navy, and no big dog in this fight. I do how ever understand some as I am in a part of the Navy that has some warrior spirit and Esprit decor, and we get that from Marines as we are attached to them all the time, and we have gunny cadre in all NMCB's Battalions, and they run the Military Tactic side of our training.This is why we are set up like Marines as in Company, Platoons, SQD's and Fire teams and take pride in that Marine ethos every where we go. We even separate ourselves from what we call the fleet side Navy and the Navy fights with us all the time about our Marine Corps attitude. I think if the Navy has their way and takes that Marine style from us we will not be the same US Navy Seabees we have been for over 75 years. I did not mean to rant but I understand when you sya that you can always say you are a Marine when asked, because I always say I am a Seabee not I was in the Navy, I take pride in my community, as I know we have pride about being a little different from other Sailors. When fleet support guys come to us they say I didn't join the Navy to be in the Marines, because what we do is some what in line with that warrior pride, they ether end up becoming like us and take back to the fleet, or they hate us and get out of Navy, or go back pissed off, but I will put money on the fact that their military bearing has changed some what. I will also say we do kind of indoctrinate them into that Seabee sprite and attitude, that some what comes form the Marine Cadres that train us.
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You have an idea of what some of the training is but you missed a lot. Combat training for Marines starts almost right away. You have hand to hand dills. Used to be called line training and now it's the martial arts training. Pugil Stick fighting that simulates bayonet fighting is one of the first platoon on platoon events we do. We also learn to rappel form a tower and a hell hole. There is the obstacle course and confidence course. There are classes on first-aid, weapons, fortified positions, land nav., and history. There is guard duty, general orders, code of conduct and they must all be memorized. Some of this may be what you call indoctrination but a lot of it applies to all services. It is just not taught until other services get to a school after basic. There is so much training and it is constantly GO, GO, GO, because that is the only way to learn it all in 3 months. Like you said it is not just teaching it is indoctrination.
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SSG Lon Watson
No I agree you guys learn combat tasks, but the army teaches the advanced stuff too early. Stuff you guys get at MCT. And they do it at the expense of the basics. I think you guys train a lower number of tasks, but you master those few tasks. The army tries to make you jack of all trades in 9 weeks.
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SSG Lon Watson
Did you miss the part of the article where I mention that stuff? But it’s still indoctrination not training tasks. The problem in the arm is we don’t spend enough time endoctrinating.
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US Army BCT 1973 @ Fort Dix, NJ. I don't remember how long basic was back then but some of the stuff I saw and experienced as a troop soundly contradicts what you're saying. Maybe things got "softer" years later. But we averaged one or two AWOLs per week. And I pitied your ass if you were captured and returned to duty. Yeah son, they put their hands on you! No love taps here, bro
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Great read, I have worked with Marines, Navy and Airforce. I have noticed in all branches there are some flaws. Very interesting read I would have never looked at it from that point of view. Love all my brothers and sisters in all branches. One team one fight.
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SSG Lon Watson - I waited to form my thoughts before responding to your post, but I think you bring up some great points yet discount others. First, let me tell you where I'm coming from on all this. I joined the Army in 1999. I attended basic training at "Relaxin' Jackson" that summer. My BCT platoon was made of mainly split-option reservists. While my memory has been messed up due to my accident in Iraq during my first deployment there as part of 1 Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division in early 2003, I remember two things about my time in basic training.
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.
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.
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Some things I agree with you on, basic training being one of them. But I would point all of the services take the short route to basic training and AIT. When we send soldiers or marines to 8-10-12-14 weeks of Basic then send them to three weeks of AIT, what did we create? A problem in the making. What is the quality of a truck driver who learns nothing but a 2.5 ton truck for four weeks?
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.
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.
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ok I'm getting pummelled, but if you read the points you'll see what I was saying. This is corrective action....nothing more. Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNn9H1LR2Tw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNn9H1LR2Tw
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SSG Lon Watson
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
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SPC(P) Jay Heenan
SSG Lon Watson
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.
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.
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Shouldn't this discussion be elsewhere? Honestly what does it have to do with the Marines?!!
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Capt Jeff S.
SSG (Join to see) - It just seems odd that an Army guy would whine about the Army's training and elevate Marine training, and not put their constructive critique in an Army forum where the audience would most benefit from the critique.
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SFC Derrick Graves
As I said in my earlier comment the author didn't have the courage to bring these criticisms to the Army leadership during his supposedly 21 years in the Army. Makes me question what kind of values this guy had when he was on active duty. But as a retired veteran myself I'm going to wish him well and hopes he enjoys that retirement check he earned from the United States Army!
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I agree with everything you said. I don't understand why the Army has gone so soft. It was starting down that path when I was in the Army in the 80's but nothing like it is now. It's a shame.
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SSG Eric Blue
The rumor going around about THAT when I was PV2 Blue was that Gen Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief Of Staff at the time, was butt-hurt about how hard things were for him when he came through. The rumor was that HE changed it to the direction in which it's now going. Again, a rumor. Not sure how true it was or is.
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