Interestingly enough, back in Squad Leader’s Course (Infantry) they showed us the first half of Full Metal Jacket as part of a lesson about how not to act with recruits. Basically, they taught us that everything the DS did was wrong. The IDF has very different training philosophies from the US military.
When I was at glorious Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri back in 1980, the drills were insane. Especially the female drills. Screaming, cursing banshees.
I don’t know about the Army instructors, but in the Air Force in 1987, the female instructors actually were at times more vulgar and over the top than the males.
I’ll never forget the female instructor that I heard chewing out a flight of females in training. They were practicing “parade rest.” This involves (among other things) having the heels of your feet placed twelve inches apart.
The female instructor loudly informed the female flight that “What your boyfriend told you was twelve inches was more like about three - spread those legs!”
Talk about an insult, though. Too stupid to know the diference between 12 and 3 inches, and fucking short dicked men besides.
My flight was at attention at the time, so we didn’t dare laugh.
Did my BT in Ft. Jackson, SC. We had a battery of reservists giving us their 2 weeks before they returned to their lives in Malibu Beach or wherever. It absolutely sucked–not because of the intended stress of the program, but because of the lack of it & watching the Chicago gangstas and other vermin slide on through the program without getting checked. That cycle 240 slackers were allowed into the Army.
As a result, my BT experience was a bizarre mix of FMJ & Stripes. Which was disconcerting enough. The occasional “real” drill DS that happened across us was an impressive specimen and if given license was able within days to square us away so that we actually behaved ourselves for a couple more weeks.
I was trained at Parris Island 25 years ago. I agree with those who claim the Drill Instructor of Full Metal Jacket was an accurate portrayal. The main difference in my experience was the prohibition from physically touching recruits in the process of punishment or discipline. The alternatives included “PT’ing” (ordering a recruit to perform various exercises until exhaustion) and forcing the platoon to stand at attention in a sand- pit while sand fleas crawled into nostrils and ears (if anyone moved the time was extended).
What about the Christopher Walken character in “Biloxi Blues”? I can’t imagine that this was a realistic portrayal.
But what did this “lesson” prove to you, Mort? And why has it stayed with you for a lifetime?
You managed to answer Yes and No in the proper order, and to stay quiet in between. Is this a critical combat skill?
It reminds me of the old trick used at kid’s summer camps and even at “mangement -skill building” weekend retreats for CEO 's: Stand up with arms crossed over your chest, then fall backwards and let the person behind you catch you. It’s supposed to teach you to trust other person, since he is the only thing to save you from smashing your head on the concrete.
But it’s such an ARTIFICIAL, non-realistic challenge that it has no real meaning.
And military regulations are the same. Folding your underwear in intricate patterns properly when you are tired doesnt make you a better soldier. Its just plain silly.
Facing a REALISTIC stressful situation makes you a better soldier
The Israeli army trains with long stretcher marches, where one soldier is “wounded” and has to be carried by all the others. This is a logical, realistic situation that soldiers face in combat. And it builds useful skills --physical , and mental–(forcing yourself to keep going,holding your buddy stable even while you are collapsing) . That’s real trust, and real training.
Yes, they use a bit of spit-and-polish , daily inspections, etc-like any other army. It adds to the discipline, but it doesnt go overboard. Nothing like the movies.
U.S. Marine DIs, at least, are not supposed to use profanity as per this from the Marine Corps DI training School
**
One suspects they use a rigorously correct definition of “profanity.”
http://www.mcrdsd.usmc.mil/Drill_Instructors_School/firstsgtwelcome.htm
I’ll be charitable, and assign your apparent lack of reading comprehension to the possibilty that english is not your native language. I quite clearly stated what was taught in that short lesson - right after I related it.
Critical combat skill? Not directly. But it is a factor in being able to communicate accurately and properly under stress.
The training cannot simulate every possible situation. The instructors do what can be done, and use “artificial” methods when neccessary.
The physical part of AF training is somewhat abreviated by comparison to the Army or Marines. This is for the simple fact that (in the estimation of the powers that be,) an airman is stationed on an airbase well back from the front lines. If things have come undone badly enough that he has to march out, then there’s not much to be done to help him - his ass is grass under those conditions whether he’s built like Arnold Schwarzeneger or Peewee Herman.
The AF does have extended training for those who are expected to need it. The AF has its front line troops - and those who go beyond the front lines.
Keeping your drawers folded properly when you are tired is artificial - they can hardly simulate the conditions that lead to trench foot or extreme dehydration. Those are two of the things that can happen to a soldier who doesn’t follow the regs laid down for those conditions. By training you to follow the regs under bad conditions, they prepare you to follow the regs at all times.
To return to the example I gave:
Reporting and answering accurately and with proper etiquette is artificial - until that day when you must report to your commanding officer what you saw and where it was in the middle of a battle. At that point, stammering and spluttering can cause a delay that will get your buddies killed.
to keep soldiers from getting dehydrated–teach 'em to drink regularly, not to fold their underwear. In the Israeli desert, take my word for it, soldiers learn “water discipline”–when to drink and when not to. But folding your underwear is mindless, robot-like discipline. Learning to ration your canteen is intelligent discipline.
The same goes for “stammering and sputtering”–in response to logical questions, it’s good training. In response to stupid nit-picking, it’s bad training. Knowing how to explain where you are on the map after an exhausting night long march is logical. Repeating silly regulations about rank insignia is silly
Still, the proof of the pudding is in the final behavior of the soldiers. In Iraq, the US forces did a fine job in combat. And in Israel, the Israeli army also has done a fine job in combat.
So I guess both training systems work pretty well.
In the Marine Corps, one learns very rapidly that “stinking,” “dirty,” “nasty” and “scuzzy” are synonyms for all the choicest words.
After all, as our friend Coldfire likes to say: c’est le ton qui fait la musique.
Marines that aren’t allowed to curse? Is someone pulling my leg? The incidence of stroke must have skyrocketed after that reg was passed!
Amen to that bro. But I would also have to add that the boot camp Marines go through, and the basic training U.S. Army infantry go through, is quite different from the BT offerend by other services and branches.
When I think about R. Lee Ermey’s portrayal of a D.I. and my own 13-weeks of basic training and infantry school at Fort Benning in 1988, I would say that while R. Lee Ermey’s was similar in some ways to the drill sergeants I had, in other ways, Ermey was just plain over-the-top.
In Ermey’s defense, however, he was portraying a Marine D.I. of his day (R. Lee Ermey was an actual Marine Corps. D.I. at San Diego MCRD from 1964-66, IIRC). These days, however, Drill Sergeants (Army) and Drill Instructors (Marines, Airforce, Navy), have their hands tied in many ways in the way they conduct recruit training. For example, instructors in all the services are forbidden from physically abusing or hitting recruits. They are also not allowed to use racial ephiteths. They are however, allowed to swear up a storm, yell, curse, and use whatever motivational techniques that are available and acceptable in training soldiers.
I personally didn’t see any of the severe humiliation or abuse tactics that are featured in FMJ. However, our drills were pretty severe in terms of their verbal abuse, discipline and in terms of making us feel worthless at the drop of a hat.
They also made up for the inability to physical abuse us by PT’ng us into the ground through regular smoke sessions at all the times of the day. In this aspect, FMJ failed to depict this most hideous aspect of basic training.
Also, starting around 1988, things like “blanket parties” or “peer-on-peer” corporal discipline were made illegal and are currently forbidden in the U.S. Army. (Not to say that such things don’t happen, but if it does occur, it usually happens at the peril of the perpetrators, who can receive Art. 15, or receive entry-level discharges by the cadre if they found to have particpated in such acts.)
Another aspect of FMJ that did not ring true in the U.S. Army basic training I went through at Fort Benning is the infamous rifle range lecture by R. Lee Ermey.
Our basic training, because it was for grunts, received three weeks of solid BRM (basic rifle marskmanship) before we ever went to qualify on the M-16A2. Not once during any of that training did the drills ever suggest that our weapons training could be used to commit crimes, or that others before us had done so.
If that happened during the 60’s during Ermey’s time in the Corps., it very well may have. However, the 60’s were different in many ways to today, in terms of what was considered socially acceptable to say and do, and in terms of the overall politcal and social awareness of the average recruit. (Today’s recruits are a lot more socially and politically aware and knowledgeable than recruits of 40 years ago.)
I agree with kmg365 that basic is different for the Marines and Army Infantry. I went through basic at Benning in 1990 (A 3/32) and while our DS were not as intense as R. Lee Ermey in FMJ, they were quite eloquent in their use of vulgar language. (I will always remember the phrase “F_cked up like a soup sandwich”) I freely admit we lived in fear of our DS finding fault with us.
Along with the verbal abuse we received when we messed up there was the physical punishments as well. The DS never needed to hit us, they simply “smoked” (physical exercise until muscle failure) us. Exercises such as the “Iron Mike,” “T-Bone,” “Electric Chair,” “Watching TV,” and a delightful exercise where we practiced our high-crawl, low-crawl, and 3-5 second rush while in MOPP-4. We also did the classics like push-ups and the flutter-kick.
I went through basic at an interesting time. The Army was experimenting with different stress levels during basic. I remember feeling sorry for the poor bastards in B 3/32, they were a couple of weeks ahead of us in the training cycle. Whenever we felt sorry for ourselves we just looked across to their bay and suddenly we were glad to be in A Co. We feared their DS more than our own. Then there were the lucky punks in D Co. who had low stress training, no yelling or cursing and they had more chow hall and PX priveledges at 2 weeks than we did at
10. We hated them.
As I understand it now, a DS may not curse and single out a soldier. They can say the platoon is a bunch of F_cking maggots but can’t call PV1 Smith a worthless piece of shit. shrug
chappachula, we too, learned water discipline in the hot Georgia sun. We also had long tactical road marches where a squad member would be designated as injured and carried. We may have had more mickey mouse shit to do, but we also learned the basic skills needed on the battlefield.
You don’t need to watch movies (which obviously aren’t real) or listen to any of these people with “first hand” experience. Just check out Maury Povich any afternoon and you can see what a real DI is like.
That Maury is going to get those kids on the right track!
For whatever it’s worth, a retired petty officer I know assured me that when he went trhough Basic in the U. S. Navy, his Drill Instructor sounded amazingly like the sergeant in the Monty Python routine: “and now we’re going to have a nice little walk in full pack; or maybe some of you maggots would rather go to an air-conditioned movie?”
There are, of course, variation among individuals.
My brother used to do a devastatingly funny imitation of his drill sergeant from Fort Riley, Kansas, who sounded quite reasonable half of the time: “why, this barracks look just terrible; what would the good captain say if I were to show this to him? Don’t you think he would be disappointed? Why, I’ll tell you what he would say, you incestuous lot of metally challenged homosexuals who invariably adopt a submissive role during sexual relations who resemble the offspring of the common house fly…” I am, of course, paraphrasing.
I went through US Air Force Basic training in 1994.
We had two main TIs (training instructors). One was relatively approachable. The other guy - we’d rather not have approaching us.
And while I forget their exact titles, in addition to the TI’s we did drill and exercise with every day, other TIs in a classroom setting. Their uniforms were similar, but they had a very different demeanor - not yelling or in your face - just businesslike.
The first few days, the TI’s seemed to be in our faces constantly. However, after the third week or so, we started seeing a lot less of the TI’s. By that point the “dorm chief” (an airman basic that was named the flight leader by the TI) was pretty much running things. And he was as tough on us as nearly any TI.
Of course the Marine basic training probably makes what I went through seem like summer camp.
My dad was a Training Instuctor in the Air Force in the 1950’s. He’d pretty much grown up in uniform since the age of eight when my grandmother shipped him off the military school.
My mom, for her part, had gone through two year’s training to become a registered nurse at a Catholic nursing school.
Between the tough ex-cavalrymen and old Army Air Corps noncoms who trained my dad, and the nuns who trained my mom, I can testify that the ones that could truly chew boilerplate and shit tenpenny nails must have been the nuns.
I see a lot of “over the top” comments, and was interested to know why people feel that way, since most seem to come from other services and other countries. In my platoon, we had two lat moves from the Army. They were 82nd Airborne who wanted to go Recon. They were bunkmates next to me who told me that it was like nothing they had ever experienced. They weren’t having fun. (I mean that in no disrespect to Soldiers here, only as a comparison).
While Ermey’s role was very accurate, I also felt that for someone wanting to know what boot camp is like, it is only a taste. Each platoon had four DI’s and it wasn’t a time share program. They were all there, all the time, with equal opportunity to do what they wanted with you.
They weren’t supposed to hit you or use profanity. Supposed to. I was punched in the mouth on the third day after getting our DI’s (after receiving) by the previously mentioned Sgt. Satan. Whoever was particularly disgusting on any given day took a chance on a belt upside the head or in the gut. I learned how to cuss in boot camp. I heard phrases applied to human beings that I didn’t think were possible. One of their favorite things was “correcting rifle position”. As the Devil said, “We aren’t technically supposed to hit you, but if I hit your rifle, and it then hits your head, it’s because you aren’t holding your rifle tight enough”. Port arms can result in several bruises to the temple area.
Personal humiliation. My nickname, in other words, my name, was My Cum Stain. Another’s was Toe Fucker. There were worse.
This was in 1984. I’d heard my dad’s stories from his boot camp in '61 and thought he was pulling my leg. I didn’t after about 10 minutes there. I tell people some of what it was like and see the “bullshit” look on their faces, but I can tell you this: I was a changed person after boot camp. I still am, and for the better, and still use it at a reference point. No matter how bad a situation I’m in, I have always been able to say “You think this is bad? I’ve been through worse”.
Over the top? You have no idea. FMJ is extremely accurate as to what a DI is like, but imagine everyone being Pvt. Pyle with 4 Ermeys running around. It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever been through.
BTW, another good movie is The D.I. with Jack Webb. I’ve gone through the sand flea funeral. It isn’t fun.
To chappachural all I can say is this: You’ll be hard pressed to find a Marine who will comment negatively on the Israelis. The Israelis I’ve known have had nothing bad to say about Marines. We don’t learn to fold underwear in boot camp. That comes later on in our careers during IG inspections and is simply a matter of personal pride as much as discipline. In boot camp, at least Marine, everything that happens actually does has a purpose, including holding an hour of rifle drill with footlockers instead of rifles, followed by a footlocker inspection 5 minutes afterwards. Infantry and field tactics come later on.
I don’t mean to demean anyone’s boot camp experiences at all, but if you haven’t been through Marine boot camp, please don’t proclaim that Ermey was “over the top”. If you’ve been through Marine boot camp, talk all you want. If you haven’t, don’t compare it. A lot goes on that “isn’t supposed to happen”.
Turbodog, the OP was questioning whether Hollywood’s portrayals of Drill Sergeants, like R. Lee Ermey’s in FMJ, were realistic – not whether R. Lee Ermey’s performance was a realistic potrayal of a Marine D.I.
I don’t doubt for one second that R. Lee Ermey was portraying to the hilt a realistic Marine D.I. However, that was not the question. Therefore, that is why you are seeing a lot of posts comparing individual D.I./D.S. experiences in various branches of the services with R. Lee Ermey.
So in that sense, we who were soldiers and airmen are perfectly justified in comparing our basic training experiences with the one featured in FMJ, and declaring how we feel about Ermey in that respect. This means no disrespect to Marines; it is just our own opinion based on our own individual experience, as the OP put forth a question that is not ‘Marine-specific’, which you suggest it is.
I’ve gotten into silly arguments like this before with Marines, such as my brother-in-law, who like practically every other Marine, literally worships R. Lee Ermey. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of you guys can’t understand that our drill sergeants could not hold a candle to Ermey. That is why we can only say that Ermey was “over the top”.
This means no disrespect on Ermey; it’s just that Ermey wasn’t realistic to me, because I never had that kind of drill sergeant in the Army.
Also, regarding “things that happen in recruit training that shouldn’t,” you should know that starting in the late 1980s, many changes took place regarding how basic training and boot camp is conducted. This was the result of a rash of recruit suicides and accidental deaths servicewide, especially in the Marines and in the Army, that gained the attention of various Congressmen.
In my cycle in 1988 at Fort Benning, when the drills said there was not going to be any physical assaulting of recruits and that blanket parties were forbidden, they meant it, and none of it happened.
So while I wouldn’t doubt that those things happened in your cycle in 1984, I would say that the Army of the late 80’s and onward has been more ‘pc’ about things like that, reflecting how changes in social mores and public opinion continue to affect how things are done in the Army.