Basic training gone soft?

[thedrifter]

Basic training gone soft?

A Marine claims Army recruits are coddled, and soldiers agree
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : February 19, 2007

You might say that Marine Capt. Josh Gibbs stands among the few and the loud. He dared to publicly criticize Army basic training after a brief visit to Fort Jackson, S.C. It proved to be an explosive taunt.

The Army recruits he saw at a basic training graduation program showed no pride or professionalism, he wrote in a Nov. 20 Marine Corps Times column that later appeared in Army Times. The enlistees were coddled, he said, and the drill sergeants stripped of the power to aggressively enforce discipline. He called it the result of lowered standards that bode ill for all.

“How will these products of eggshell training handle the sights and sounds of battle?” he asked.

He ended: “The Army is training soldiers for a pillow fight, not a war.”

And, of course, he claimed that Marine basic training is tougher.

The column, and an online forum at www.armytimes.com, drew hundreds of responses, primarily from active-duty Army noncommissioned officers. But you might be surprised at what they had to say. Rather than using pen and keyboard to slit his leather neck, they agreed with him by a ratio of about 2-to-1: Army basic training just isn’t tough enough, they said.

Even a drill sergeant weighed in with what he says is wrong.

“We as drill sergeants here at Fort Jackson, S.C., have been fighting this issue for years,” wrote Staff Sgt. Armando Luna. “It’s a shame that a Marine who was here for a short time observed that much.”

Luna, who went through basic in 1989, said, “It’s gotten a lot different — a lot softer.”

If circumstances were normal and recruiting standards were higher, he said, the training changes might work pretty well. But some of the recruits have “gangster” attitudes, he said, and don’t always qualify mentally.

“I think the whole thing would be better if they would change the standards back. The training is great — it’s so much more advanced than when we came through.”

But on the discipline side, the new recruits have classes before they enter training that teach them exactly what drill sergeants can and can’t do: They can’t harm them physically. They can’t yell at them. They can’t smoke them until the new soldiers can’t move.

They can counsel them, and they can hit them with Article 15s and loss of pay, he said. “That kind of disarms us. If they know we can’t yell at them, they’re not so worried about doing something wrong. We’re supposed to be nice and calm with them. But some of them need more than that because they didn’t grow up with a lot of discipline.”

Yet Luna said some things are better, and he loves his job.

“Don’t get me wrong: We have some outstanding soldiers,” he said. “I’m down with the caring of soldiers, but some of it they take too far.”

Staff Sgt. Erik Guidotti, of the 309th Military Intelligence unit at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., said in an interview that he worried that “when [today’s trainees] get into the combat zone, they’re going to fold like origami.”

But other soldiers said the new recruits arrive smarter and better able than yesteryear’s troops to think quickly in tough situations — and that trying to train this generation’s soldiers the old-school way would fail.

“Soldiers are performing tremendously,” said Sgt. 1st Class Marlon Brooks, of the 91st Division at Camp Parks, Calif. “They have the ability to think and overcome and adjust, and that’s because of what they’re learning from their drill sergeants.”

Col. Jody Draves, spokeswoman for Training and Doctrine Command, said the critics are mistaken. “We have worked really hard to make the training appropriate to today’s mission. Training is more rigorous and more geared toward making soldiers adept in their soldier skills.”

As an example, she cited the requirement that basic-training soldiers carry weapons with them at all times, rather than only during weapons training or field training exercises, and clear their weapons every time they enter a building — key training considering there have been more than 70 negligent-discharge deaths in Iraq. Drill sergeants who have just returned from theater make up a large portion of basic training leaders, and they have the freedom to teach what they believe soldiers will need, she said.

“We apply the lessons learned immediately,” Draves said. “We don’t wait for it to become doctrine.”

However, the approach to training has changed, she said. “Instead of yelling at soldiers, there’s respect for them. You don’t have to tear a person down. We want soldiers to think.”

But does that lead to a lack of discipline, as Gibbs argued?

“That’s not true,” Draves said. “We teach soldier values. All the young soldiers I run into are certainly demonstrating those values.”

The Army’s drill sergeant of the year also disagreed with Gibbs’ take. Sgt. 1st Class Steve Howd said that nobody yelled at him when he went through basic in 1984 at Fort McClellan, Ala. “it wasn’t a mission to strip away everything you came with and build up the Army model. It was, ‘You’re here to train.’”

He called the idea of “breaking them down to build them up” a myth, and dismissed toughening up soldiers with methods such as push-ups in gravel as useless, especially with a new model of recruit.

Describing how much more information soldiers receive in basic training than they used to, Howd said, “What benefit are you getting from going through your first day in the Army with bloody hands. [Today’s soldiers] don’t run out and play. They’re not outside like they were 15, 20 years ago, so they’re not conditioned the way we were.”

But things have changed, he said, in that soldiers are expected to learn more.

“When I went through, they said, ‘We’re going to feed you with a fire hose,’” he said. “Now, it’s a waterfall.”

If sergeants are seeing a lack of discipline, maybe they should look at their own methods, he said. “I think that still goes back to standards. If the NCOs allow disrespect, that falls back to the NCOs.”

Sgt. 1st Class Mike Behkendorf went through basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in 1996, and said he remembers arriving at his unit packed into a cattle car with the other new soldiers.

“When we got off that cattle car, we were moving,” he said. “Then, we moved into the barracks for shakedown. We were encouraged to run and hustle.”

But he also didn’t have to qualify with his weapon in body armor, and he had to shoot only from the prone and unsupported prone fighting positions — rather than taking a knee to shoot. The training is better, he said, and soldiers who went through basic in the past may have a false idea of today’s training. “I think a lot of it is perception.”

Sgt. Harry Doremus IV, who works at the troop medical clinic at Fort Jackson, often sees another side of today’s recruits as they stream through for treatment.

“We see all the sick-call soldiers,” he said. “There are a lot of them who are just trying to get out of work.”

Every day, he said, he sees those same soldiers disrespecting the sergeants.

“You see them throw their hands on their hips and talk back, ‘You can’t talk that way to me,’” said Doremus, who went through basic training in 1999. “It really has changed over the last 10 years. There was some of it when I went through basic, so I don’t think it’s a new issue, but there’s more of it now.”

Doremus sees the problem as societal — parents aren’t teaching their kids respect — but also institutional.

“When I got here, I was briefed that I could try to correct a soldier if I saw a deficiency, and if they get mouthy, I could put them at parade rest,” he said. “But then all I could do is contact their unit. I’m not allowed to make them do push-ups or low crawl or what we used to call ‘smoke ’em.’”

He said the change could be because sergeants may have abused their power, but he hears drill sergeants complain often that their power has been taken away from them.

“It’s just the way the Army’s headed,” he said. “These kids spent way too much time playing computer games and not learning life’s lessons, and now we expect drill sergeants to instill discipline in nine-and-a-half weeks when their parents couldn’t do it in 18 years.”

And he said it won’t translate well in the battlefield.

“They’re already questioning authority here, and it makes the day-to-day mission more difficult. In a combat zone, you don’t have time to react to a soldier questioning your authority.”

More soldiers stay

Gibbs, who took part in a spirited online forum, declined to comment further. On a spring visit to Fort Jackson — the same post he visited before writing his column — Army Times learned that because of new policies, soldiers get more sleep, do sit-ups on sleeping mats, and are yelled at less than previous generations of soldiers.

But they also learn more, have to make decisions rather than only follow orders, and can multitask their way through a day’s training like no previous generation. The leaders at Fort Jackson say the new training means fewer injuries, which means more recruits graduate, and they retain more of what they are taught.

“The soldiers have already committed. They know they’re going to war,” said Col. Jay Chambers, commander of 1st Combat Training Brigade, 13th Infantry Regiment. Chambers leads the basic training units at Fort Jackson. “It’s to our benefit to lead them instead of train them.”

And attrition rates showed that something had to be done to retain soldiers: A Government Accountability Office report issued in April 2000 showed that in 1998, 36.9 percent of all service members were leaving the military during their first year of service. The Army ranked at the top of the list for lost recruits. The GAO found people left within their first six months for three main reasons: medical problems caused by training, fraudulent enlistment and performance problems, such as failed PT tests or the inability to adapt to military life. Other reasons included being overweight, character and behavior disorders, and alcoholism and drug use.

But interviews with out-processing soldiers showed that many of them left because of poor leadership techniques, such as obscene language or humiliating treatment, and the GAO concluded that “negative motivation has a detrimental effect on some recruits’ desire to stay in the military.”

As the wars raged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it became difficult to bring in new soldiers, those numbers became even more important. In 2003, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command changed Regulation 350-6 to ban drill sergeants from using abusive language, allow recruits more personal time, give new soldiers seven hours of sleep a night and cut down on injuries. As of winter 2006, graduating recruits may also earn off-post one-day passes, rather than the on-post family-day passes they received in the past.

In just one year of training changes, the Army is seeing a difference. At Fort Jackson, the basic-training attrition rate stood at 12.6 percent in fiscal 2004. In fiscal 2005, that percentage sank to 8.8 percent, according to Fort Jackson spokesman James Hinnant. Army-wide, about 11 percent fail to make it through basic now compared with 18 percent last May.

A different generation

Soldiers on both sides of the basic-training fence agreed that the new generation of soldiers is different: They grew up on video games. Their parents didn’t spank them. Most of them did not participate in high school sports. But that’s where the agreement ends.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Duane Schultz, of the 51st Maintenance Company at Fort Bliss, Texas, had no nebulous feelings about the new training.

“I had six new guys in today,” he said during a phone interview, referring to soldiers who had just completed their initial training and reported to their new unit. “Two of them couldn’t pass the PT test. It’s like, ‘What are you guys being taught?’ When they get here, they barely know the basics.”

As an example, he talked about a new mechanic who did not know how to fill a Humvee tire with air.

“There’s a lot of pressure on our recruiters to bring people in, and I think we have lowered our standards,” he said. “And then there’s pressure on the drill sergeants to just get them through the training. We need to go back to breaking them down, building them back up and then molding them into something we can use.”

But Brooks, the reservist from the 91st Division, said times are changing and older soldiers need to adapt, too.

New soldiers have led to a new leadership style, he said. If he needs to reprimand a soldier, he takes him aside.

He allows soldiers to make decisions about the way they’re going to carry out his orders. And he doesn’t raise his voice — though sometimes he changes his tone, he said.

“I’ve been in 22 years, and I’ve had to adapt, too,” he said. “But soldiers appreciate that I speak to them in a respectful manner. They get the job done. And it’s up to us to carry on what they learn in basic training.”

Ellie

[10thzodiac]

WTF, doesn't the Army know if they keep this up, they wont have anybody worth sending to war ?

[MacAngus]

I'm in a VA group witha bunch of army dogs and I'm the only Marine. Of course I'm out numbered but all these guys think is that Army boot is at least as hard as the MARINE CORPS boot camp and of course I compare stories with them. I can't wait to print this out and show it to them we are all iraq and afghan vets and for the most part they are younger than me. I waited 2 years after coming home to got to the VA so most have just gotten out of the service and most say they proboly had it tougher than US. I knew Thier boot was easy but I've seen brownie troops and cub scouts doing harder training than these lot of losers.

[MacAngus]

sorry my computer is screwed up.

[maverickmarine]

Yeah, I am freakin' cuttin' and pasting this bad boy for my friends that are Army pukes right now, LOL.

[bootlace15]

ARMY STRONG OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

bootlace15 out

join the ARMY they have babysitters

[jost03]

Just remember "theres nothing stronger than an army soldier, strong. army strong" WHAT A LOAD OF ****! if these pussys cant pass a PT test let alone fill up a ****ing! theres gonna be a lot of dead army dogs piling up in Grave Regristration cuz they didnt know what the hell there doing. GOD that ****es me off!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phantom Winger]

All the Army has to do is look at the public school system to see how this approach will fare. Teachers and administrators aren't allowed to discipline other than suspending the student and sending them home to apathetic parents responsible for the students behavior in the first place.

I showed this article to a coworker (retired Army) who I respect. His first observation was that most of the NCO's agreed with the Marine's call while the brass thought otherwise. Who has to deal with it in the end?

Personal responsibility today is much like common sense... uncommon.

[RLeon]

I keep hearing about how it's a societal problem...well duh, the whole point of boot camp is to take the society out of a boot and make him into a war fighter. Basic training in any branch should never change to fit "society" as as far as discipline goes, the only thing that should evolve and change is techniques due to technological and strategic advancement. Uniforms, weapons, tactics will change, but honor, respect, and military bearing should never be deemphasized to fit society's whims. And yes we are guilty of bending too...I remember when DI's would tell us that we couldn't do certain types of training becuase Mothers of America didn't like it.

[10thzodiac]

If anyone has seen the documentary movie, "Hearts & Minds" [Vietnam], do you recall the army lieutenant saying, when on patrol [bait] they'd just go outside the perimeter and camp until it was time to come back. Or when the colonel was directing their ops from a chopper above, being told to go North, they'd go South.

[DWG]

I keep hearing about how it's a societal problem...well duh, . And yes we are guilty of bending too...I remember when DI's would tell us that we couldn't do certain types of training becuase Mothers of America didn't like it.

I don't recall any of our Drill Instructors asking anybodys' mother about training techniques or whether they had any input!

[3077India]

I was told by an old army ranger, that only Army special forces units like Delta Force and Army Rangers receive training comparable to what army basic used to be about 30 or 40 years ago.

[10thzodiac]

I was stationed with the 173rd Airborne for two years. We shared Camp Sukeran [Zukeran now Foster].

I was with the 12th Marines Artillery (cannon pogues) my barracks [Regiment] was less than 35 feet from the Air-Borne Brigade. These guys were no slouches, if I was a betting man my money would be on the 173rd. Crack outfit.

The army has pouges, but they have elite outfits also. Marines have Force Recon and pogues.

Kid yourselves not...

[RLeon]

I was stationed with the 173rd Airborne for two years.
he army has pouges, but they have elite outfits also. Marines have Force Recon and pogues.

Kid yourselves not...

Wow, your right...I never realized that. Dang, what a bunch of chumps the Marines are, stressing discipline, when all along they could have lowered their standards and still have elite outfits like the Army...gee I wasted my time, I should have just joined the Army...

Seriousy, yes the Army has elite units and the Corps pogues, but our pogues are tougher and more disciplined than their pogues...

[10thzodiac]

Wow, your right...I never realized that. Dang, what a bunch of chumps the Marines are, stressing discipline, when all along they could have lowered their standards and still have elite outfits liek the Army...gee I wasted my time, I should have just joined the Army...

Seriousy, yes the Army has elite units and the Corps pogues, but our pogues are tougher and more disciplined that their pogues...

What percentage of Marines are Force Recon [Elite] ? Anybody that can run can be a grunt, but how many can be elite [Force Recon], is the point ? Yes our pogues are tougher than theirs, plus are uniforms look better