DISCLAIMER: I know that what is depicted in the movies, as regards military life, is fiction.
Anyhoo, there are several movie scenes where a recruit and his drill instructor fight it out. In An Officer and a Gentleman, Gere’s character, Mayo, fights it out with his drill instructor, Foley. Mayo, being somewhat skilled in a Filipino streetfighting technique he learned on the mean streets of Manila, gets a couple of good licks in before Foley gets the upper hand. Similarly, Denzel gets a couple of licks in against his drill sergeant in A Soldier’s Story before the sergeant makes short work of him. And in Stripes, I’m pretty sure Bill Murray’s character doesn’t land even a single punch before his drill sergeant downs him but good.
I know that all branches of the US military teach hand-to-hand combat, but does this training mean that those who go through it are going to be effectively invincible against even a skilled street fighter? To be a drill instructor, is one expected to go through more hand-to-hand combat training than troops in other disciplines?
Also, doesn’t the UCMJ tend to frown upon fisticuffs between troops and their commanders? Wouldn’t both participants, if it was indeed mutual combat, be looking at time in the brig?
Not time in the brig. But the penalties would be huge. Administrative separation for the trainee and probably a Chapter for the DS. He/she would be relived and probably forced out of the military.
Questions answered already — You can become a top hand-to-hand fighter if you make it your business to train to be so, beyond service requirements. The branches would prefer you use the weapons they provide, against the enemy, and get along with your own guys.
Of course, in the movies part of the the point was to show that Foley, Hulka, etc. were tough badasses.
I have nothing factual to contribute on this topic. But for fictional portrayals, one of the best has to be Career Ship’s Sergeant Zim in Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers.
He spends a lot of time on Zim being a badass and there’s an extended section on his introduction as the head boot camp instructor for the space marines. After extensively berating them, Zim invites any recruit to fight him, singly or in pairs. He flattens the first guy instantly and even apologizes for injuring him. “I’m sorry. You hurried me a little.”
Then two guys step out and Zim asks what rules they have in mind. I always loved that Heinlein has a lowly recruit answer thoughtfully, "How can there be rules, sir, with three?”
Zim replies, “An interesting point. Well, let’s agree that if eyes are gouged out they must be handed back when it’s over."
I don’t know where Heinlein got that stuff. Maybe the military was a lot different in those days and he ran into one hell of an instructor. Or it all sprang from his mind. Either way, an interesting read.
To state the obvious, most drill instructors are going to be better trained than most civilians off the street. It’s a competitive job that goes to the top NCO’s, they’ve been through the equivalent of 3 boot camps plus their combat arms training on top of that, plus it’s not unusual for those guys to pick up some fighting art as a hobby. From my memory they were all from combat arms MOS, though this may have changed since.
Does that mean they’re better hand-to-hand fighters than someone with specific and advanced training? No, of course not.
But I’d say they could probably beat any “skilled street fighter” because that’s not a formally trained school of fighting. It just means you’ve survived some fights, you can take a punch, and you’re not afraid of violence. That’s definitely something, but it’s not enough to challenge the top 10% of Army Infantry NCO’s.
A “skilled street fighter” is a somewhat nebulous standard, but the hand to hand fighting skills taught in US Army Basic Combat Training (and the equivalent in other branches) is rudimentary; the Marines get a little bit more than everyone else because they’re Marines, and Air Force probably a little less because the biggest thing they are likely to fight hand to hand is a small rodent which made a nest in their cubicle. (Apologies to PJs, CCTs, CWTs, and TACPs.)
Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in combat focused units will receive some additional training in unarmed and non-firearm combat but still not to the point of being able to take down an experienced boxer or MMA fighter, because there is a limited amount of time for training and a lot of other important things to learn, such as how to get your AN/PRC-162 to connect to encrypted SATCOM, how to field strip and fix your M249 SAW, and how to trade your Chicken A La King MRE for something edible. And frankly, if you are down to your bare hands or that M7 you’ve been carrying around to dig a quick latrine hole, you are in dire straits that a solid round kick or proficiency in a guard pass isn’t going to fix. The real point in unarmed training is to instill some natural aggression, not to make them a super-ninja with quick-kill moves.
Drill sergeants and instructors spend their time learning how to yell and be as verbally abusive as regs permit, and also coming up with novel punishments that make trainees lives miserable for 8-13 weeks. Their main weapon against 18-20 year old recruits is a loud voice and a steel will, generating fear and terror through intimidation. If they felt compelled to hit a trainee, they’ve already failed in numerous other ways.
Physical confrontations between recruits or low rank enlisted and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) are strongly discouraged and harshly punished. If initiated by the former during basic training, they will almost always receive an Entry Level Separation (ELS). Following basic and assignment to a unit, a physical attack would get them a General Discharge, likely with Under Other Than Honorable Conditions (UOTHC); if they actually manage to substantially injure the NCO or damage a lot of property they might get a Bad Conduct Discharge (requires convening a court martial). A drill sergeant or drill instructor physically attacking a recruit or junior enlisted beyond what regulations permit (essentially nothing today) will likely receive an administrative discharge (Chapter 10 discharge, as referenced by @Bear_Nenno), assuming no serious injuries.
An enlisted soldier, sailor, et cetera attacking an officer is going to the guardhouse or the brig, promptly followed by UOTHC or court-martial, depending on prior service record and whether the attack was provoked in any way. An officer attacking a junior enlisted person is unlikely because for the most part they don’t have much direct contact; I’m sure there would be administrative punishment for the officer and likely moved to a dead-end billet to await being forced out through non-promotion or RIF.
You can safely assume that anything you see in television and films about basic training, junior enlisted and NCOs duking it out to prove a point, a senior SEAL team CPO punching out a LtCmdr and then triumphantly returning to unit, or Jack Nicholson shouting at a prosecutor, “You can’t handle the truth!” in what has to be the weirdest court martial proceeding that the Navy has ever held are written by screenwriters who have approximately zero experience with the military except what they’ve seen from other screenwriters. Don’t even get me started about Courage Under Fire.
Quoted for truth. There were actually deaths in the distant past because of physical abuse by DIs, so the military instigated a “hands off” policy for all branches. They can march you, PT you, and otherwise make you wish you were anywhere else, but they can’t lay hands on you.
As for DIs being skilled in unarmed combat, I’d be willing to bet that pretty much anyone in my boot camp company could have kicked our company commander’s ass without much effort. It’s the consequences of doing something like that that restrains you.
When I was a kid UI used to see movies and TV shows that had drill instructors insult the recruits under their command most unmercifully, calling them punks, faggots, and maggots, talking shit about their mothers, and so on, and wondered why the Hell the recruits just took it from them. The notion of taking that sort of guff from some mean-mouthed loser was one of the many things that helped me decide I would never join the military. I still wonder if every now and then some young tough guy fresh off the street doesn’t reach his limit and knock the mouthy old fart’s block off for him, and why that doesn’t happen a lot more often.
While an informal fight between a recruit and instructor is certainly frowned upon and would probably result in severe consequences for both, what about sparring, with agreed-upon rules and with no intent to inflict actual harm, as part of unarmed combat training?
My dad was an Air Force TI, and later owned a working man’s tavern where we kids saw him handily dispatch the unruly. But if he’d ever used violence in the barracks we’d have heard about it (we heard about everything else). He always said the USAF was the gentlemen’s branch.
“Sparring”, particularly with “no intent to inflict actual harm”, is not actually of that much benefit in learning how to survive in an actual fight where there are no “agreed-upon rules” and may even be counterproductive in learning bad habits like pulling punches or expecting an opponent to not gouge eyes or try to bite you in the face. Peer-on-peer exercises are useful in learning how to employ techniques, especially when it comes to groundfighting, and instructors will certainly demonstrate techniques on students, but there is little point to an instructor doing some light ‘sparring’ with a restrictive set of rules.
Here is a Task & Purpose article purporting to be “Everything you need to know about the Modern Army Combatives Program” based on 3-25.150. Most soldiers only attend Level 1 basic combatives training, and unless they are in a direct combat, training (drill sergeant or specialist combatives trainer) or military police role likely won’t do Level 2 or higher training.
From the article, directly addressing the question of the o.p.:
Sgt. 1st Class Zach Rapada, Branch Chief of the U.S. Army Combatives Course, has been involved in teaching combatives to his fellow soldiers since he enlisted in 2012. Though MACP basics will establish a foundation in combatives, it does not make a soldier a professional UFC fighter.
“They are not comparable,” Rapada said. “[MACP] gets soldiers the basics; it’s up to them to advance their skills at their units or during off hours.”
Soldiers can later attend the MACP Level 2 Tactical Combatives Course training, where they will learn to master the basics as a trainer of Level 1 MACP.
The major difference between Level 2 and the CMTC is that trainers learn how to set up and referee combatives tournaments. But even as a Combatives Master Trainer, that doesn’t make a soldier qualified to take on someone like Connor McGregor.
When I was in Army Basic or it might have been the advanced training, there was a jody call (marching song) I heard only once. I forget the exact words of it, but it was about that recruit who did decide to knock the drill sergeant on his ass. All the D.S. did was smile, and the last line of the call was something like “‘Now you get to learn about the UCMJ!’”
My father was a WW2 Pacific Theater and Korean war combat vet. Did basic at Joint Base Ft Lewis McChord in WA circa 1944.
I was maybe 10, and I think it was the DI with Jack McWebb was on TV. Afterwards, my father said they had a real hardass for a drill instructor. One night, out on a some training, the recruits including my father, pulled the tent stakes of the DI, and “beat the wadding out of him.” DI was less of a hard ass after that.
I was in the Navy for eight years. I didn’t learn any hand-to-hand combat other than how to disarm someone with a knife or handgun. We used props and fortunately I never had to do it for real.
There was additional training but it was hard to get and took awhile, as in you had to be in awhile and had to vet yourself for it. The MAs (Master at Arms) had that type of training and could really hurt you if they wanted too. But other than them, I don’t think anyone at any of my commands would be a threat in hand-to-hand.
This happens all the time, actually–if you’re not talking about two people who would otherwise engage in an actual fight, but decide just “spar” instead. If you’re talking about sparring as part of training, this is the backbone of the Modern Army Combatives Program. Repeatedly practicing moves with willing, compliant opponents has limited value once the technique is learned. That was a chief complaint on the L.I.N.E.S. combatives program that SOF had a few decades ago. Every move was basically a “kill move”, so practicing and sparring wasn’t really practical. Which meant the skills weren’t really mastered, and what was learned depreciated quickly.
With MACP, sparring can be integrated into everything, from morning PT, to intramural competitions. As a drill sergeant, I’ve used it to decide what platoon will get to ride back from the field first and get chow and showers before the others. Let each platoon pick a champion. Last one to tap earns the first bus ride back for their platoon. It pays to be a winner. There are progressive rules that can restrict the sparing to submission techniques only, allows open hand strikes (slaps), allow punches below the neck, allow kicks, etc. Eye gouging, fish hooking, groin striking, etc., are always not allowed.
Sparring can be used much like “drawing straws” would be. That is in addition to being great training and physical exercise. MACP sparring is ubiquitous across the Army. You’ll see it everywhere for a variety of reasons, to include “soldiers were bored, so they started fighting”. This is completely different than two soldiers being pissed off at each other and going behind the barn to spar, though.
All infantry soldiers graduate with level 1 certification. I’m not sure about the other MOSs. All Drill Sergeants, regardless of MOS, will achieve MACP Level 1 Certification at the US Army Drill Sergeant School. When I went through Drill Sergeant School. I was already a Level 3. So, during the MACP days, I would just help my classmates. I still had to attend the training. While a Drill Sergeant, I spent a cycle break attending Level 4 to become a Master Trainer. Way back in 2003 I attained Level 1 Certification in L.I.N.E.S. which basically means I can “grab, twist, pull” someone’s genitals off or “270 break” their arm, or stab a sentry in the taint and cover his mouth before he screams… you know, useful stuff. MACP teaches much more basic fighting skills and concepts like closing the distance, gaining the dominate position, finishing the fight, etc.
And just to reiterate, a Level 4 Master Combatives Trainer isn’t necessarily going to be a great fighter or a master of mixed martial arts or BJJ. It simply means they understand the basics enough to not only teach those techniques to others, but to certify others to teach the techniques to others. Also, they can organize and referee sparring competitions. But they aren’t equivalent to a BJJ Blackbelt or something. As a perfect example, when I roll with a Gi, I wear a white belt. Let that sink in.
It was towards the end of Basic Training, and this guy, who had always had trouble with authority, decided he had enough. Our company XO, a lieutenant, was walking by our camp site, so this loser ran up and started threatening him. He ranted and raved and made threatening motions with his arms (taking care not to actually touch the guy), while the lieutenant just stood there, arms at his side, small smile on his face, with a small crowd of us other recruits gathering around, unsure of what to do. After about half a minute of this, the lieutenant flicked his eyes over the crowd, picked out the two largest trainees, and gave them a short nod. The two of them, with huge grins on their faces, immediately grabbed the ranter by the shoulders and steered him into one of the tents, where they sat on him - I think literally - until the MPs came. We never saw the guy again.
I was in the navy 40 years ago and in boot camp we got not one smidge of hand to hand combat nor even anything in small arms training. After all, with a few exceptions, sailors tend towards crew-served weapons, a CV being the ultimate example of such.
Being a soldier means you follow orders, have self discipline and a sense of community with those around you. The “hardass DI” is part of the process of transforming civilians into that.
In terms of your question I have to speculate as I haven’t served, but I would think it would be a function of human psychology and tried and tested techniques.
That is to say, the insults / abuse might only be slightly more than last time and/or in a context in which other people are being insulted too, so there is no obvious confrontation moment for someone to suddenly snap. The DI need not be an expert in psychology to know this, only recall how his DI behaved.