basic training sounds like something that you cannot really keep a secret. With some effort you could probably even locate North Korean soldiers to interview about how they were trained, let alone Western or Chinese ones.
Well, so what do we know about how the content of the training compares between nations, let’s say between America and Germany or between America and China? Is it very similar in all countries who are known to have modern, competent militaries as a result of convergence towards the same best practices? Or are there big differences, so that the experts from different countries could have a long professional discussion over why their local method is the “best practice” better than that of their foreign colleagues?
I imagine the level of physical and verbal abuse varies considerably from country to country. I’d bet that things a South Korean drill sergeant does every day would get him arrested in short order in the US, much less someplace like Holland.
Different countries and their armies have different philosophies on what an army is for, how the soldiers in it should be treated and act and so on, which will lead to different training methods. The US has a strong authoritarian attitude in the society and a strong militaristic leaning, and favour the boot camp with the intent to break down the personality of the recruits and rebuild them as new soldiers.
In European countries like Germany, the attitude is towards soldiers as citizens (that’s why there is still a draft, although less and less people 1) are drafted in the first place and 2) go the military instead of the alternative civil service in old people’s homes, handicapped people etc.) The recruits know that abuse is not allowed and who to complain to in case anything happens. There’s still a tendency of right-wing “law-and-order” people and right-extremists to feel drawn towards the military, and esp. now, with the reduced forces and draft times, they are overrepresented, leading sometimes to nasty going-ons.
No, there can’t be a real discussion on what method is best practice if there are different aims. If the aim is to have people who obey orders without questioning back or thinking about the morality of the whole issue, you use a different method than if you want active citizens who know about the Geneva convention and are ready to act according to their conscience even against orders. If the philosophy of your country is to have aggressive wars you train differently than if you have only defensive wars or common NATO actions.
There are several combined methods - though not in basic - between NATO countries - since you expect a level of cooperation in battle anyway, so common exercises make sense, as well as special battalions, for example, the French-German ones, which were formed for historical reasons. Here’s a link to the Eurocorps for example.
I am more interested in how the actual military training works rather than in how familiar the soldiers get to be with Geneva Convention, animal rights and similar. Every society goes crazy in its own way in terms of the ideology, but assault rifle use training or small units training seem to be areas where you can have meaningful convergence - or perhaps meaningful competing approaches.
The first few days, the insructors yell at you when you mess up, not in-your-face-top-of-the-lungs yelling like you see in movies like Full Metal jacket though. If you don’t present yourself according to protocol, you get yelled at a little. If your group messes up, you do more physical exercices. Two recruits cried, one had to quit because his nose kept bleeding.
Once, we were eating and two people were kept outside the mess hall to watch our weapons. They were supposed to be relieved by 2 assigned recruits but were not. The sergeant yelled at us for that and made us understand this was unacceptable. He promised us a 1 hour run. I’m a bad jogger so I dreaded that. It turned out to be an easy run.
At first, 13 of us slept in a tent, we had to keep it clean which was easy. Morning inspection involved looking at details but not to ridiculous degrees. Making sure there were no loose threads on the clothes, boot heels shined, no sand under the sleeping bag.
They taught us drill, step…by…step, several times.
They taught us everything you’d need to go on a rough camping trip. Map and compass, first aid, how to rig your rucksack.
They familiarized us with common equipment, including the main assault rifle. We spent far more time maintaining weapons than using them.
They taught us how to communicate and read NATO signs. They also taught us some military ethics/law for a few hours.
One of us was the senior for the day and had to do some minor leadership tasks.
The gas hut session was to build confidence in our equipment, not to haze us like I understand they do in the US Marines. We had to breath some of it but it was rather short.
The worst punishment of our group was the one I got. Our restroom in the field was a plastic toilet with a bag. I was tasked with bringing that bag to the truck. I walked with said bag, not being keen to trip and fall. I arrived a few seconds late. My instructor was unhappy with that and I had to keep the bag with me for the upcoming training sessions, simulating responding to ambushes, breathing like Darth Vader in my gas mask, with an assault rifle in one hand and a bag full of crap in the other.
Someone higher ranked than my instructor heard about that and the punishment was stopped.
That’s not an exhaustive description but it might give you an idea and others something to contrast their experience with.
If you’re looking for information on the different ways weapons and tactics are taught, you’d better look elsewhere than basic training. Basic training is mainly used to change psychological habits to get people to work as a team and carry us the tasks assigned to them well and fast. It’s also a test to see how you handle adversity.
This. At my Army basic training, we weren’t allowed to call the drill sergeants “drill sergeants.” They’re response (I’m paraphrasing) was, “I’m a sergeant in the United States Army, and that’s how you’ll address me.” Local policy, obviously. For my first AIT at another post, when attempting to address the drill sergeant as “sergeant,” the response was something like, “Do you see this hat [the drill sergeant hat]? I earned this hat! You’ll address me as ‘drill sergeant’!” Also, my basic training post (at the time) wasn’t co-ed. Others were.
As for the movies, well, basic training (this was 1989) wasn’t anything like that. Physical and verbal abuse? Not really. I hear about “stress cards” these days, and I think, wow, what a bunch of pussies. I think I’ve read that the stress cards are an urban legend, though.
This reminds me, our tents were co-ed. There was one female recruit who would change her top without a wearing bra, surrounded by about 12 male recruits in the tent. I don’t think that’s standard.
How do other militaries handle males and females sharing quarters?
The Israeli army - which probably has more female soldiers than any military in the world - strictly forbids shared quarters. In fact, in most bases the female barracks are surrounded by by a high fence with signs saying “Female Quarters - No Entry!” Female enlisted soldiers are also not allowed to sleep at a base containing males without a female officer present.
That isn’t to say that people aren’t having sex. They are. A lot. It’s just that they have to be a bit more discrete about it.
It is a myth. I went to Basic almost six years ago (God, I’m getting old) and we didnnt have stress cards in the Air Force. We got yelled at, swore at, etc, all the goood stuff.
In just the last few years, due to a number of serious incidents, the South Korean government, especially its military, has been taking measures to clean up the abuses which had been prevalent in military training.
About the only substantive difference between the movies and reality is that they are not allowed to beat you. No, they just strap 60 pounds of stuff to your back, make you do push-ups, and leave you in the down position until the TI gets tired of watching. On asphalt. In Texas. When it’s 80 degrees out. No, really.
In the Air Force, at least, they do in fact have to ask permission to touch you. When the TI came around to fix my salute, he respectfully asked me if he could adjust my hand position. I thought that to be absurdly strange, but I guess they had to cover themselves. My TIs tended to be fairly restrained with the cursing as well although they could read you up one side and down the other if they felt like it.
Otherwise, anything goes. My two cousins, one Army and one Marine, had very different experiences, although I don’t recall them ever mentioning outright physical abuse. They just had other training priorities. Much more weapons training, much more vigorous physical conditioning, that sort of thing.
And the “stress cards” are a total myth. I suspect they were invented by former servicemen who like to tell stories about how tough Basic was in their day and how us soft, lazy recruits would never have made it back then. Everybody does it, it’s the equivalent of the old when-I-was-your-age canards.
The “Stress Card” myth started as a joke. Soldiers are, or at least were issued a little “Agencies that Can Help” type card during suicide prevention class. It was just a list of agenices and phone numbers. It was never intended to be used as something to pull out when a Drill Sergeant was yelling at you–certainly not something that would make him stop yelling.
Using it in that manner just progressed from “I’m stressed, I need to pull out my stress card. ha ha ha ha” to “The stress card makes the drill sergeant take a time out and leave me alone. ha ha ha ha” to “Soldiers are issued stress cards in one of the other companies! Can you believe it!” to “OMG! Now soldiers across the Army are given stress cards to pull out if they are being yelled at too much!”
