A friend of mine who was in the Army for a few years - though he never served overseas - was in town for the Thanksgiving weekend and we got together. Among other things, he talked to me about how shitty his experiences with the Army were. He said that:
The Army is overbureaucratized and impersonal.
The tours of duty are too long (he claimed 18 months versus 8 months for the Marines) and said a friend of his wound up doing TWO 18-month tours.
They physically abuse you during Army basic training, whereas in the Marines they can yell at you but not touch you.
That the Marines are more professional, there is a tighter bond between soldiers and officers, and that there is a better culture of cooperation and brotherhood.
I know nothing about either the Army or the Marines other than that I wouldn’t particularly want to join either of them right at this moment. But can anyone here with military experience - I know there are lots - address these issues? Is this guy just bitter or is there some truth to what he told me?
It sounds like your friend is comparing his shitty experiences in the Army against the marketing hype of the Marine Corp.
My general impression as an outside observer who never served is that the Marines are a much smaller, more tight-knit organization with a greater esprit de corps. That said, the flip side of that esprit de corps is an almost cultlike devotion. So basically if you are Marine Corp material, you love the Marines. If you aren’t, it’s probably even more miserable than being in the Army.
If the Marines did half as good a job in Iraq as it does in telling people how great they are there not only would no longer be a war in Iraq, Iraq would be a beacon of peace and stability to all its neighbors.
Seriously, the Marines are a fine, professional and dedicated service. But so is the Army. Are there duds in the Army? Sure. But are there also duds in the Marines? You bet.
I’ve served alongside Marines for many of the years I’ve been in the Army (going on 18 years now). Love them almost to an individual but like Mmith537 said if you’re Marine material you love them and if you’re not you likely get washed out before it becomes an issue.
I’d be really surprised to learn that Army Drill Sergeants can physically abuse you … if that means make you road march 12 miles and or push your physical endurance limits fine but if he’s insinuating that Drill Sergeants hit or ‘abuse’ in a more traditional sense I have to wave the bull flag … Not saying it NEVER happens but that I would guess is the exception to the rule.
He’s probably comparing it against the stuff he’s heard from his friends. A lot of his friends are current Marines.
What he said was, and I quote: “They say you don’t get hit in basic training. Trust me, you do get hit.” This guy is pretty rock solid trustworthy - I don’t think he’s ever told a lie in his life, so I’d have to guess that he encountered one of the exceptions.
People tend, in my experience, to over state the trials of ‘basic training’ … I’ve heard Marine’s tell similar stories (broom closet, Drill pushes trainee to see what he will do). In my experience it doesn’t happen … that’s not at all to say it couldn’t happen. Mainly it happens with people that recently completed basic training. He’ll I’ve likely spun a few yarns myself back in the day.
Remember the Drill Sergeants accused of sleeping with their trainees in Aberdeen Proving Grounds a few years back? Not allowed but happened none the less, I’m sure it DOES happen but I would expect it would come out more often in the wash if it were commonplace.
Regardless to answer your original question I think both have their merits and both have their faults … might as well compare apples and oranges.
Stupid Edit Rule, that or stupid brain for not thinking of this sooner.
Now that I think about it, I did get ‘hit’ in basic twice … First time we were running in formation and I was out of step. The drill sergeant had been yelling at us to ‘get into step’ and I was too focused on the run to notice it was me … he kinda punched/pushed me in the shoulder to wake me up, nothing that ‘hurt’ longer then a few seconds. Second time we were at a range and I had not put my weapon on safe like I was supposed too … he hit me on the helmet, again it didn’t hurt. But this is honestly the first time in 18 years I’ve even thought about it. The road marches, being hungry, sleepy, homesick are the memories I have from that time.
People who sell drugs aren’t generally under the sort of scrutiny an NCO in a training facility is; if you hit a recruit on Monday you might get away with it, but do it again on Wednesday and there’s a damn good chance you just sank your career. I’m sure it’s been known to happen on rare occasions but most drill sergeants are not going to risk their careers to do something that’s stupid anyway.
But Argent Towers said “They physically abuse you during Army basic training, whereas in the Marines they can yell at you but not touch you.” It seemed he was insinuating that the Marines can’t do something, but the Army can.
Anecdotal information: In my years in the Air Force I lived close to Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines and of course many were my friends and acquaintances. When sharing stories among one another about Basic Training or more advanced training, not once did I hear about physical abuse. I’m supposing that’s because there typically isn’t any and any stories including any would be called on by members of the same branch who know better. As a civilian living in NJ, I’ve heard no less than three times of former Marines “bragging” about how their Basic Training was so much tougher than that of the other branches and that their DIs hit them. I’m thinking it’s pretty darn near non-existent for the reasons RickJay gave. A recruit alleging that a DI hit him wouldn’t just be brushed off. An allegtion of almost anything in the military doesn’t get brushed off.
Army Drill Sergeants aren’t allowed to strike Initial Entry Soldiers anymore then Marine Drill Instructors are allowed too … I can’t give you a cite atm but can tomorrow if you’d like. Same goes for Navy Initial Entry instructors and Air Force Initial entry instructors.
When you volunteer or are chosen for Drill Sergeant duty (I’m sure it’s the same not matter what service you are in) it’s a BONUS to your career and you wear a badge for the rest of your career telling the rest of the Military you performed this duty. Those that have done it typically are at an advantage for more senior positions. It’s a GOOD thing to be a drill sergeant … most of them are very level headed, forward thinking individuals. Are they hard? You bet. Are they tough? They have to be. Do the routinely strike trainees? I really doubt it.
Now the Coast Guard, the routinely put kids in the hospital. In fact I heard last week that they abolished the practice of Keel-Hauling … someone should really do SOMETHING!
Basic training doesn’t take place in a hood where people intentionally look the other way either. Most training is at a minimum Company wide which means there are at least 3 other Drill Sergeants present besides your own. Other exercises like the long march or obstacle course has nearly a battalion on the field. A Drill Sergeant smacking around his shoulders would be caught.
As a Doper once said in another Army/Marines thread, if you took the Marine Corps and you transferred to it all the military AND political missions and responsibilities of the Army and expanded it in size accordingly, what you’d end up with would not be the Marine Corps as we know it, it would be the Army with better-looking uniforms.
I think that is key. Someone who fits in well as a Marine will often have a large emotional investment in his/her “beloved Corps” and maybe see some unpleasant event along his career as a strengthening, bonding experience while an Army soldier may remember the exact same event as a f***ed-up time being had by all for no good reason, yet both be remembering the facts accurately.
Is the Army more bureaucratic? Well, it is over three times bigger; it has its own subcabinet department all for itself for the political/civil side of things, while the Marines get to share the Navy Department for that side of things; it has to handle two large reserve components (Army Reserve and National Guard); etc. It HAS to be more bureaucratic, it’s the nature of the beast (bureaucracy itself is not an evil thing, you need one for a large organization to work. It’s what you DO with the bureaucracy). And again, the Marines hand off a lot of the bureaucratic things to the Navy.
As to misbehaving Intitial Entry Training Instructors, ALL of the services forbid assaulting or abusing the trainee. Now, just so happens the Army has more Basic Training posts and more Drill Sergeants than the Marines have Recruit Depots and DIs or than any single other service and their equivalents; and that the Army is likelier in lean-enlistment times to end up with something less than the most desirable trainee sample; so I could to concede the likelihood of encountering an abusive smokey-hat wearer would be higher by sheer total numbers, but not that it’s to the point you can say as a norm “Marines don’t, Army does.”
Pretty much everybody I ever knew who was in any branch of the military except the Marine Corps got over it at some point following discharge. The Marine Corps does such a fine job of selecting the most malleable recruits and then imprinting them that I’ve known relatively few Marines who ever completely got over it. They continue to think of themselves as Marines for the rest of their lives.
The Corps performs their military mission competently; but they are unequivocally the best at convincing their recruits that they are an elite force…better not only than mere civilians, but better than members of the other services as well. I’m not talking about “better” just in the sense of performing military tasks, either. The Marines do an outstanding job of convincing their recruits that (should they complete training and become a Marine) they are a better class of human being. Their publicity machine has also convinced a surprisingly large segment of the general public of this too.
Mostly the tighty-righties out there, I’d imagine.
Americans should not rest easy with the idea of a Spartaesque warrior overclass. In fact they ought to be suspicious of anything remotely approaching it. And the Marines today, at least compared to the few old Corps guys I know, have definitely moved closer to that ideal. If nothing else, the standardization they impose on their “product” goes a lot deeper and lasts a lot longer.
My favorite Marine Corps advertising campaign was the Dungeons and Dragons-themed one that ran on televison a few years back. Talk about convincing people they’re something special…they’re out there climbing active volcanoes and fighting monsters!
The one that stayed with me is the one where the young man has to get past the fire-spitting dragon before he is awarded the sword. The symbolism was clear: the first enemy you have to confront is boot camp, and in so doing, yourself.
Truman once said (as he butted heads with the Pentagon over force restructuring after WW2) that the Marines had a better propaganda machine than Stalin.
When did that become true? From what I’ve noticed in my scattered 19th Century readings, the Marines has no special prestige…rather the contrary, to go by songs like “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines”.