Army gone soft?

I suppose the next war will be in a mall.
 
Ungrateful yuppie larvae...

Since when is the Army a country club populated by overprivileged children? Y'ask me, I'd take the higher washout and rollback rate to get tought soldiers - we're not after quantity, we're after quality here.

Next thing you know, we're going to hear about Special Forces schools going soft, and it's bad enough that they're doing it to Basic. I thought the idea of Basic was an acid test - to see who might make it as a solder and who might not? Something wrong here...

5-90
 
5-90 said:
Ungrateful yuppie larvae...

Since when is the Army a country club populated by overprivileged children? Y'ask me, I'd take the higher washout and rollback rate to get tought soldiers - we're not after quantity, we're after quality here.

Next thing you know, we're going to hear about Special Forces schools going soft, and it's bad enough that they're doing it to Basic. I thought the idea of Basic was an acid test - to see who might make it as a solder and who might not? Something wrong here...

5-90
Click to expand...

x2

I'm working on getting back in...and YHWH help the first puss I come across who starts whining.

:D
 
5-90 said:
BRAVO ZULU!

"If you've passed the acid test, great! If you haven't had an acid test, I'd be happy to provide one for you..."

5-90
Click to expand...

I thought Timothy Leary was dead.
 
Well, my son ships out soon for parris island, he swore in last friday and is on delayed entry till he graduates from college in dec. I'm happy he changed from USA to USMC, I wanted him better trained and with an almost 100% guarantee that Iraq is in his future the corps I think was the best choice...
 
RichP said:
Well, my son ships out soon for parris island, he swore in last friday and is on delayed entry till he graduates from college in dec. I'm happy he changed from USA to USMC, I wanted him better trained and with an almost 100% guarantee that Iraq is in his future the corps I think was the best choice...
Click to expand...


Good luck to your son Rich. My oldest swore in to the NAVY a few months ago..... After seeing that video, I am glad.

If he wanted an easy go of the military, he could have gone Army it seems. They are getting to be too close to the Air Force in slacker training I guess.
 
Glenn said:
Good luck to your son Rich. My oldest swore in to the NAVY a few months ago..... After seeing that video, I am glad.

If he wanted an easy go of the military, he could have gone Army it seems. They are getting to be too close to the Air Force in slacker training I guess.
Click to expand...

I don't know first hand aobut the Chair Force, but while I was in the Marines, we were told that aside from the physical training, that Chair Force boot camp was just as mentally challenging as our boot camp. And that the Chair Force had modeled their boot camp after Marine Corps boot camp. We also heard about 'stress cards'.

How much of this is true either way, I don't know, but I AM sorely disappointed in the Army's direction at this time. I think that the Army is valueing numbers over quality. Which I think will lead to higher loss of life and mission failures . . . .
 
SBrad001 said:
I don't know first hand aobut the Chair Force, but while I was in the Marines, we were told that aside from the physical training, that Chair Force boot camp was just as mentally challenging as our boot camp. And that the Chair Force had modeled their boot camp after Marine Corps boot camp. We also heard about 'stress cards'.

How much of this is true either way, I don't know, but I AM sorely disappointed in the Army's direction at this time. I think that the Army is valueing numbers over quality. Which I think will lead to higher loss of life and mission failures . . . .
Click to expand...
Your last two sentences are completely correct.

I was medically discharged 4 months before my commission date. Reason being: "A loose shoulder." The answer I got: "Well, we have enough people, we dont need you."

Some of the others that were commissioned, I would not trust anything to, let alone want them to lead soldiers. I feel sorry for whatever NCO gets them, as they are ate up, and will get people killed.

Fergie
 
Glenn said:
Good luck to your son Rich. My oldest swore in to the NAVY a few months ago..... After seeing that video, I am glad.

If he wanted an easy go of the military, he could have gone Army it seems. They are getting to be too close to the Air Force in slacker training I guess.
Click to expand...

Well, I'll have to wait till I get home to see that video, No flash available for firefox at this time so I can't watch it from here. I don't think that the army is that bad, granted they need numbers, my main gripe is that they don't all get the training that they need to go into the kind of warefare thats happening now. My old unit, Artillery batallion, got sent over. Within two weeks they were doing patrols on foot and did not get near their M109's for almost the entire time they were there, OJT is not the way to learn urban combat by throwing gun crews out on the street.
Me, I spent 7 years Navy, 5 years submarines, the other 17 was national guard.
 
I threw up in my mouth a little when I watched that.

Ft.Benning, 1986, flashback...
I was skeered half the time a DI was gonna kill me, yelling started in the morning and didnt end till lights out, and maybe even longer then. We seldom got over 6 hours sleep, 4 to 5 was the norm. We trained even on the weekends, Sat and Sun were just another day to train, alibit it was tuned down a little. You ate what you were served, or you went without. If you were caught talking in the mess hall, you were done... go dump your tray and exit the rear of the mess hall. We didnt have stress cards, if we cried about being tired we just got dogged even more.

There are plenty of examples of how soft it is now, but I dont want to bring myself to tears.

My drill sgts are exactly why I am the man I am today. My wife and my daughter are proud of what I have accomplished, and all that with a GED under my belt.

INFANTRY ALL THE WAY!
 
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit myself. Some retard upstairs decided it would be a good idea to take away the Army's teeth and give them chewing gum. We're about to start watching a lot of good kids come home in boxes unless some damn good NCOs can whip them into shape in time. even that'd only save a fraction.

Granted it's a different service but...

In November of '02 I went to MCRD San Diego and the things they put me through might have been the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me. (survival-wise) It woke me up to the realities of more than just war, but to real life. You can't think like a kid after an experience like that, not if you take it and get it shoved deep down inside where it counts.

I was choked out by my drill instructors a couple of times, and I wasn't the only one. Sleep deprivation was the norm and if it wasn't mandated by the DIs, as was sometimes the case, it was always recommended and usually followed. Sure you could sleep as much as you wanted after lights out, but you'd be sorry later. Sunday was the only day we had halfway tuned down, and that was because of religious services.
 
I'll go with you on Air Farce Basic being relatively easy - what they're after is more "attention to detail" and "stress management" than physical qualifications. Granted, this is also pre-"Stress Card" days, so I don't know what it's like anymore. However, I'd like to see what happens the first documented instant that a stress card gets held up in any sort of engagement - and what happens as a result.

I think we're doing the new "soldiers" a disservice by lightening the load in Basic. Granted, Boot is about five times harder than what, say, 70% of the forces will deal with daily - but it's good having some idea where your limits actually are, and how far you can go (and even better having pushed them before and come out the other side - that usually means you can do it again. It's actually amazing what you can learn to put up with...)

Sleep deprivation isn't much of an issue for some people, I'll grant - I only need about four hours a night myself, with an occasional 8-10 hour "crash" sleep (usually about every four weeks.) Sleep deprivation is another thing that one can learn to deal with.

All you can eat? We got one trip through the messline, and the rule was the same as it was at Alcatraz - "Take all you want, eat all you take." God help the airman that didn't clean off his tray! It wasn't a social hour - if you talked, you'd better not get caught (and quite a few of us became amateur ventriloquists and/or lip-readers as a result. Just bear in mind that most of the TI's can read lips as well...)

I first heard about "Stress Cards" from my younger brother - who apparently wanted to make me spit a half-cup of fresh coffee through my nose (OUCH! I'll get him back someday for that...) I couldn't believe it - what's the damn point?

Americans are going soft, and this is a result. How long before we can no longer field an effective fighting force? Kinda reminds me of that list of "Reasons to be proud you were born before 1975" (or something like that) - all the sudden hazzards we just dealt with while we were growing up. Things like lead-based paints, no cellphones, going outside to play - guns in school (for the older among us who grew up in rural and semi-rural areas!) kids with knives and guns (what a great way to learn responsibility! Pity we can't do that anymore... I've carried a pocketknife every day of my life - except Basic, since my fifth birthday! It's just a part of getting dressed anymore, and just as important to me as my pants,) and so on.

We are probably the last of the American "risk-takers" - those who will challenge ideas and norms, and not do it for fiscal gain. We were willing to "risk it all" to make the world even a little bit better, or to improve things for our families, and we tried to raise children in that image. Too bad the government stepped in with bilingual education, and the Yuppies got started with their "Human Potential Movement" - I taught my kids that you have to accomplish something before you can feel good about yourself. Doesn't have to be much, but it needs to be something, and something positive.

I think it's made them better men as a result, and I hope they do the same with their kids. It will be uphill work, but the payoff is/will be worth it, I think.

5-90
 
I remember going through Boot Camp in '84. We got to sing old fashioned Jody Calls most of the way through. Then we had to tone it down... so as not to offend the women coming in etc... As a general rule, we all commonly felt we were the last class of real boot camp at that point. The kids from 85 on lost out on real good stuff. They started toning things down and making it more friendly after that. What a shame.
 
MyJeepXJ said:
Ft.Benning, 1986, flashback...
I was skeered half the time a DI was gonna kill me, yelling started in the morning and didnt end till lights out, and maybe even longer then. We seldom got over 6 hours sleep, 4 to 5 was the norm. We trained even on the weekends, Sat and Sun were just another day to train, alibit it was tuned down a little. You ate what you were served, or you went without. If you were caught talking in the mess hall, you were done... go dump your tray and exit the rear of the mess hall. We didnt have stress cards, if we cried about being tired we just got dogged even more.
Click to expand...

x2, except mine was Army Basic and Military Police School (OSUT) circa 1997. Someone uttered the words 'stress cards' (we didn't have them, but the military was using them in places) around the Drill SGTs...and earned us all about an hour of muddy wintertime PT. :loveu:

Stress handling, attention to detail, situational awareness, and coping with sleep deprivation were all things I took away from there...amongst becoming a professional soldier.
 
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