# Angry drill instructors
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 1, 2018, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244 "2018-10-01T06:47:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/21 "2018-10-01T19:46:39Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> As mentioned, the yelling (Basic Training & the like) has nothing to do with respect. It is about efficient and effective communication and it is about creating a stressful, often confrontational environment. Managing stress, mastering emotional responses, keeping cool under pressure–these skills above all will determine whether or not a soldier will be able to perform and keep himself and his comrades safe and mission ready.
Eugene Sledge, With The Old Breed:
> [@](#):
>
> Boot camp taught me that I was expected to excel, or try to, even under stress. My drill instructor was a small man. He didn’t have a big mouth. He was neither cruel nor sadistic. He wasn’t a bully. But he was a strict disciplinarian, a total realist about our future, and an absolute perfectionist dedicated to excellence. To him more than to my disciplined home life, a year of college ROTC before boot camp, and months of infantry training afterward I attribute my ability to have withstood the stress of [the Battle of] Peleliu.
I’ll be the first to admit that not all of my instructors have been realists and perfectionists. Some have been bullies, some have been jackasses, and some have been straight-up morons. But speaking generally, there is a method to the madness and that method is to help the trainee adapt to a difficult lifestyle as fast as possible.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/22 "2018-10-01T20:48:01Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> I wonder if there have ever been any scientific studies done on the best way to train soldiers? Are there any foreign militaries that take a less histrionic approach to training? Just looking at the difference between the Army and Marines, it seems like the Marines get a lot more hell from their instructors, and no doubt they are tougher individually than Army soldiers, but I’m not sure that in a modern military environment that makes them BETTER. I think an argument can be made that if the Marines took the “softer” approach of the Army towards training that the Marine Corps would be just as effective as it is now. And DIs might not all be so hoarse all the time.
Just do a Google search on that and you will find videos where say British soldiers talk about American marine corps training.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2018, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/23 "2018-10-02T13:42:58Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> I wonder if there have ever been any scientific studies done on the best way to train soldiers? Are there any foreign militaries that take a less histrionic approach to training? Just looking at the difference between the Army and Marines, it seems like the Marines get a lot more hell from their instructors, and no doubt they are tougher individually than Army soldiers, but I’m not sure that in a modern military environment that makes them BETTER. I think an argument can be made that if the Marines took the “softer” approach of the Army towards training that the Marine Corps would be just as effective as it is now. And DIs might not all be so hoarse all the time.
I’m not a military man, but I’d argue that it’s not the harsher basic training environment that makes the average Marine what they are vis-a-vis the average Soldier, but rather the institutional traditions, expectations and knowledge that are part and parcel of being a Marine.
In other words, they’re taught that a Marine does X, Y and Z, and Marines do not do A, B and C. And those things are backed up by 200+ years of being a more or less small, high quality volunteer force, along with a multitude of good invididual Marine examples and unit examples to look back on. They also set themselves up as an elite club, so to speak- not everyone can be a Marine, so you are special. But with being special, comes certain responsibilities and expectations. And so forth… Most of the rah-rah macho Marine stuff isn’t actually aimed at the outside world- it’s aimed internally.
Contrast this with the Army, who has a sort of fundamental problem relative to the Marine Corps- in peacetime, it has historically been a similar small, volunteer force for the most part, but its biggest fights were fought with mostly conscript and militia forces, and since WWII it’s been pretty large. So it’s probably harder to instill that same level of professionalism and esprit de corps in all those people- you can’t make that exclusive club argument, and a lot of the historical examples look more random than triumphs of Army values and traditions, because they were random draftees who happened to be heroic, or units of self-selected draftees led by draftee officers who turned out to be terrific fighting units (for example, Easy Company of the 506th PIR as chronicled in “Band of Brothers”).
The harsher boot camp is just part of reinforcing that “otherness” of being a Marine- I kind of suspect it’s not harsh for its own sake, but for that reason.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/24 "2018-10-02T19:37:59Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> Members of the Spanish Armed Forces “are not allowed to use foul language, for any soldier in the service of His Most Catholic Majesty is a gentleman and must use language appropriate to one.”
>
> s. One of the differences between ranks was that the higher the rank, the least likely to yell. A corporal might yell occasionally, a sergeant almost never and an officer… if an officer was yelling at you you were fucked up to levels mathematics cannot describe (I’m not counting giving instructions as “yelling”).
I can remember my dad give a serious ass chewing to an employee that _seriously_ deserved it … almost 20 minutes without any foul language. I was in deep awe over it. He retired after 30 in the army having started enlisted and going into the officer program after 5 years enlisted. Awesome man.
Me? I swear like a ground pounder. I attribute it to my original work being in a male dominated environment with guys with no inner filters…
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2018, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/25 "2018-10-02T20:19:38Z")
> [@aruvqan](#):
>
> I can remember my dad give a serious ass chewing to an employee that _seriously_ deserved it … almost 20 minutes without any foul language. I was in deep awe over it. He retired after 30 in the army having started enlisted and going into the officer program after 5 years enlisted. Awesome man.
Oh yeah. I remember back in my Army days, the drill sergeants could reduce a man to a blubbering pool of tears without even resorting to innuendo or physical threats. That really made an impression on me, the ability to exercise that kind of rhetorical restraint while giving someone a serious dressing-down.
But this is far afield of the OP question - for elite/volunteer units, the fear of failure is generally enough to motivate people. There’s basically no humiliation or chastisement required at that level.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2018, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/26 "2018-10-02T22:43:09Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> The guy across the street says he was a Marine sniper. Do you know any ways to trip him up if he isn’t? He owns a gold plated 1911A he claims to have been owned by General Pershing.
Ask him about Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. That’s where they train, since around the early 70s.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/27 "2018-10-03T02:03:43Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> Ask him about Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. That’s where they train, since around the early 70s.
Thanks!
Dude, you ever been to High Wah Ya?
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/28 "2018-10-03T08:08:04Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> Higher training will also have an element of that artificial stress, but it plays on different motivations. In Basic, everyone is still kind of scared of getting yelled at and smoked. But you get over it. And by the time you’re thinking about advanced training, you know how to take an ass-chewing, and you know how to push through physical discomfort. The instructor just isn’t going to get your attention by yelling and smoking, unless the goal is to humiliate you by treating you like a recruit. Instead they’ll sound out your fears about personal failure, about being the weak link in a chain that gets everyone on the team killed or worse, about maybe someone talked you into this program but it’s not really you, is it? What if you pass the course and get your wings or your funny hat–do you really want to do _this_ for the rest of your career? Or are you just going to be a patch-finder? A chairborne ranger? Someone who spends all day in an office or a bunker, but gets greeted with hearty, mocking calls of “_Hardcore_!” Maybe you’re taking up a training slot for someone who actually wants and deserves the credentials you’re just going to waste. Why are you really here? You’ve got a good career, you can go back to that career right now, just say the word. Nobody else in your company has a Ranger tab, they can’t say shit to you about washing out of something they didn’t have the guts to try. There’s no shame in admitting this isn’t the right choice for you, God bless you for having the balls to step up and take a look. Go back and be an asset to your company, this isn’t really you, is it? THAT kind of talk gets under a soldier’s skin.
I don’t get that training method. Why undermine your troops’ self-confidence instead of building it up? I mean, even if they pass the course, won’t they still have doubts? Seems like a recipe for [impostor syndrome.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome)
I mean, I get the idea - the trainee is supposed to “prove them wrong.” I think, though, that it can backfire on them, and probably does. Better for instructors to tell them that they CAN do it, that they have faith in them, and thus force the trainees to work hard to prove them _right_.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/29 "2018-10-03T12:24:46Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> I don’t get that training method. Why undermine your troops’ self-confidence instead of building it up? I mean, even if they pass the course, won’t they still have doubts?
And will they actually learn anything? Someone may say “oh, an academic setting is different”, but I never met a teacher that put the students down who could teach worth shit. A person that you know to be fair who points out your specific fail points while saying “but I know you can improve” is both better motivation and actually… actually pointing out things where _you_ need to do better, not just coming up with shit that’s got nothing to do with _your_ actual ass.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/30 "2018-10-03T12:31:51Z")
I think part of the deal is creating soldiers who believe that the DI can make them do anything, and obey automatically, without question. When given a hand grenade and told to charge a machine gun, they won’t say, “Hey, wait a minute!”
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/31 "2018-10-03T12:36:54Z")
After Navy Officer Candidate School (which is run by Marine drill instructors, and in my understanding is as tough as Marine boot camp), I went to a series of technical schools for nuclear submarine officers. None of them involved yelling aside from a few instances in which someone majorly screwed up.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/32 "2018-10-03T12:39:33Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> I think part of the deal is creating soldiers who believe that the DI can make them do anything, and obey automatically, without question. When given a hand grenade and told to charge a machine gun, they won’t say, “Hey, wait a minute!”
You don’t need to demean people for that.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/33 "2018-10-03T12:50:51Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> You don’t need to demean people for that.
No, but if it works…
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### Author:  [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/34 "2018-10-03T13:04:43Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> You don’t need to demean people for that.
Basically the entirety of military history would indicate otherwise. The goal is not just to make someone obedient (although that is extremely important) but to generate stress and noise and confusion. When you see a soldier being screamed at by three people at once, they are deliberately trying to confuse and disorient the trainee. The goal is for the trainee to adapt and get them to focus on what they are supposed to be doing, despite the fact that they are surrounded by screaming antagonists.
As to whether you actually learn anything… Don’t overestimate the importance of basic training. The point of basic training is to indoctrinate the soldier in a new group culture, build a focused and attentive mindset, and teach them the absolute basics of how to march and shoot. You actually learn very little in basic.
The real learning does take place in classrooms. (And there are classroom portions in BCT). That’s a big part of why you have a clear distinction between the “basic” training phase and the “advanced” training phase. You will notice that basically every school starts of with lots of screaming and indoctrination, but when they want you to actually learn something the Drill Sergeants very noticeably step back and calm down. There is a method to the madness. By the end of the training cycle, the Drills actually raise their voices very seldom.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/35 "2018-10-03T13:35:29Z")
But you can scream at people without abusing them. I was screamed at a lot during basic training - stuff like “Move! Move!” or “They’re shooting at you!” - as well as stuff like trying to tie a tourniquet while one of my squad leaders was slapping me on the helmet and shouting. Stress is fine, but it doesn’t have to be abusive. The only insults my squad leaders and platoon sergeant would use were those pertaining to our young age (infancy, actually), in experience, and general state of shock; all things that we could grow out of if we tried. Our officers, who played Good Cop to the NCOs’ Bad Cop, would never shout at us, of course, unless we did something that posed an operational risk to ourselves or others (poor range discipline, for instance, would be guaranteed to get a fast, effective ass chewing from our lieutenant). At most, they would let us know they were disappointed in us.
IMHO, blind obedience is the lowest form of discipline. This isn’t Napoleonic times, when all enlisted men had to do is march in rank, shoot and charge. Today, it’s never “Take that machine gun nest”; instead, it’s either “Follow me, we’re taking that machine gun nest!”; or “Grab two guys and take that machine gun nest.” In the first case, the soldier goes because his commander has faith in him and trusts him to watch his back; in the second case, the soldier is in charge, which means he has to think of a solution; in both cases, a disciplined soldier does it because it’s his job and because doing so could save his friends’ lives.
Soldiers follow orders under fire not blindly, but because they have faith in their commanders, because they know their jobs, and because they can tell a good order from a bad one.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/36 "2018-10-03T14:45:51Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> I don’t get that training method. Why undermine your troops’ self-confidence instead of building it up? I mean, even if they pass the course, won’t they still have doubts? Seems like a recipe for [impostor syndrome.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome)
>
> I mean, I get the idea - the trainee is supposed to “prove them wrong.” I think, though, that it can backfire on them, and probably does. Better for instructors to tell them that they CAN do it, that they have faith in them, and thus force the trainees to work hard to prove them _right_.
Elite forces aren’t likely to find themselves in stressful situations where they will also be getting encouraging affirmations from others. Motivation has to come primarily from within, and in spite of exterior forces discouraging mission completion. Everyone has doubts and insecurities–sometimes doubts about self, sometimes doubts about working with a team, and these can be more detrimental to success than physical weakness. If you’re in a Ranger or SEAL type school, it’s a good bet you’ve got the physical toughness to succeed, but those inner demons need to be crushed or at least enslaved and redirected. Instructor is just echoing your own doubts, laying them out in front of you, making them real by saying them so you have to confront them. If you graduate there is no doubt you deserve it and that your ass is truly bad.
It is understood, even early in Basic, that Drill is not the enemy so much as the personification of forces working against you. Once that sinks in even the harshest instructor becomes a mentor who just happens to know about more types of curve balls life is going to throw at you. I found myself laughing a lot in Basic when Drill would change the rules just as we were getting good at the routine. It was funny because life is exactly like that. There are so many unknowns that are beyond your control that you need to be thinking and assessing the situation all the time. You can’t always anticipate what the change is, but anticipating some kind of change keeps you from getting caught completely off guard.
And it’s not like there is never any positive reinforcement, they just don’t dwell on it. You can finish a complex task, and do it well, and you will hear, “Good. NEXT!” You’re walking on clouds for the rest of the day.
And just to be clear, I did Basic as an old man (26 years old) so I was a lot more philosophical about it than the 17 & 18 year-olds who took everything personally. My info on the advanced training comes from discussions I’ve had with SF, SEALS, Rangers, and Delta so it’s second hand, in a way. These same people were my leadership and mentors, and helped me to craft training techniques for my crew.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/37 "2018-10-03T14:57:55Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> But you can scream at people without abusing them. I was screamed at a lot during basic training - stuff like “Move! Move!” or “They’re shooting at you!” - as well as stuff like trying to tie a tourniquet while one of my squad leaders was slapping me on the helmet and shouting. Stress is fine, but it doesn’t have to be abusive. The only insults my squad leaders and platoon sergeant would use were those pertaining to our young age (infancy, actually), in experience, and general state of shock; all things that we could grow out of if we tried. Our officers, who played Good Cop to the NCOs’ Bad Cop, would never shout at us, of course, unless we did something that posed an operational risk to ourselves or others (poor range discipline, for instance, would be guaranteed to get a fast, effective ass chewing from our lieutenant). At most, they would let us know they were disappointed in us.
>
> IMHO, blind obedience is the lowest form of discipline. This isn’t Napoleonic times, when all enlisted men had to do is march in rank, shoot and charge. Today, it’s never “Take that machine gun nest”; instead, it’s either “Follow me, we’re taking that machine gun nest!”; or “Grab two guys and take that machine gun nest.” In the first case, the soldier goes because his commander has faith in him and trusts him to watch his back; in the second case, the soldier is in charge, which means he has to think of a solution; in both cases, a disciplined soldier does it because it’s his job and because doing so could save his friends’ lives.
>
> Soldiers follow orders under fire not blindly, but because they have faith in their commanders, because they know their jobs, and because they can tell a good order from a bad one.
That’s why it’s Basic Training. It’s to get a baseline standard for all of those who are in the process of becoming soldiers. The Marines throw an EGA at them after boot camp. The army recognizes that they aren’t fully qualified soldiers until after advanced training. Mine was an additional 17 weeks and there was little yelling.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/38 "2018-10-03T15:08:52Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> That’s why it’s Basic Training. It’s to get a baseline standard for all of those who are in the process of becoming soldiers. The Marines throw an EGA at them after boot camp. The army recognizes that they aren’t fully qualified soldiers until after advanced training. Mine was an additional 17 weeks and there was little yelling.
For me, it was 18 weeks of basic training followed by 8 weeks of advanced infantry training, although it was the same company with the same command staff in the same base, so the difference between the two courses was mostly a formality. The shouting died out gradually as the weeks past, so that by the time we deployed, we had developed into a regular infantry company, albeit a junior one.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2018, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/39 "2018-10-04T00:14:15Z")
There are some tasks you have to learn to do while people are shooting at you. Some of this training is done in a stressful environment, because you have to learn to do things in a stressful environment. But (1) some militaries work mostly in environments where people aren’t shooting at them. (I put the Israeli military in this category), and (2) even for the shock troops like the US marines, there’s a lot more to being in the marines than just being shot at.
The Israeli military is known to do less yelling and intimidation than the US military. For whatever reason. But I think that the reason might be partly that they mostly do guard duty, and occupy their own country: entry level grunts need to be trained to be polite to people, and to operate at peak efficiency in places where nothing is happening for long periods of time.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/angry-drill-instructors/822244/40 "2018-10-04T00:54:18Z")
My Daddy used to say the first week of boot camp was like kindergarten, learning how to walk inline, crying for Mommy and pee-ing the bed. If you made it to week 2 you were probably gonna succeed.
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