I was watching clips from the 1987 movie “Full Metal Jacket”. In one scene, the drill instructor, gunnery sergeant Hartman, punches private Joker hard in the stomach. When the movie came out I thought that the script writer took artistic license and this type of abuse could not possibly have occurred in reality.
However, I’ve since read several accounts from former Marines who went through boot camp in the Vietnam era who confirmed that this part of the movie was realistic and this kind of abuse wasn’t uncommon at all.
I was wondering how the situation is today and when, if at all, it stopped.
By comparison, the Army in Nazi Germany (the Wehrmacht) was infamous for it’s harsh discipline, but it was absolutely unthinkable that a sergeant would hit a recruit. If he did that, he would have been in a world of hurt and gone straight to jail.
A German NCO could make a recruit walk like a duck for hours in the blistering sun with the rifle over his head, but he could never, ever touch him.
This is why I’m really surprised to read about violence in the US military.
Well I spent 3 and a half years in the U.S. Army, entered around October 08 2002 and Went to basic training in Fort Knox, I imagine that it was one of the hardest basic training points the U.S. had to offer considering I’d heard about other bases that had male/female integration and we were ALL male, and from what I experienced you are correct, I never had any fear at all that a drill seargeant would lay a hand on me or any other private, they would curse the SHIT out of use and smoke us all day long, (all night long too a lot of the times), and throw things at us like indirectly not really trying to hit us (in our direction or to catch something) even curse at us like pick that FUCKING thing up but never FUCK YOU, I heard a drill seargant directly curse at a private once that I remember out of the maybe thousands of curses that I’ve heard over the two month period but, hell there was much more fights and attacks between soldiers than between Drill Seargants and soldiers. That was my experience in the U.S. Army, not sure bout Marines or anything else.
Everything mentioned in this thread–physical abuse, profanity, duck walks; all of it–would land a modern US Army drill sergeant in a lot of trouble. Punishment would be anywhere from loss of rank and position, to discharge, and even incarceration.
I dunno about that. I remember watching a news clip where a SGT in boot camp hit a recruit and killed him. I did a quick search but did not find it, but, I did find another boot camp one where the SGT did get court-marshaled:
I do know that the Marines, as I was deployed with them, would “rough” people up. While deployed, I’d see a SSGT and one of his goons find a CPL or LCPL that they decided needed to be worked on. As an outsider I could see them narrow in on the individual, case him, test him, and I’d see the rationalization to get physical begin to be laid out. With the final outcome being the CPL/LCPL with an arm in a sling, looking like they had been up for 2 days, black eyes, starving, etc. Also heard first hand-accounts where people had been hit because of some perceived problem, yet they were not explained to what exactly it was, and were then punched or had an arm twisted to the point where a sling was required.
Your example of an entire company being reprimanded, to include a 6 month jail sentence for the commander is supposed to disprove my statement? What is it that you “dunno”?
We had an earlier thread on this topic and I recall some posters stating that they wished that their instructor had been permitted to punch them in the stomach compared to what they were actually permitted to do.
There was an incident about 25 years ago, IIRC, where a recruit in the Marines drowned during a harsh cross-country exercise. The story that eventually came out was that the recruit was a little "slow’ (minded) and the sargent had been picking on him mercilessly, and should have known there would be problems with this exercise.
The article mentioned that as a result of this incident the entire procedure for basic training was reviewed and the trainers were being held to a more strict standard. The implication was they could get away with anything short of direct physical assualt causing injury, up until then.
Also remember the scenario of “A Few Good Men” where the “discipline” was enforced by goon squads at night, if necessary, at the direct or indirect instigation of the commander. Not every action is out in the open.
My best friend went to West Point, and he noted that Southerners tended to wash out at a much higher rate. His belief was that Southerners generally aren’t used to the kind of verbal abuse that gets handed out to new recruits, etc., and simply say “fuck it” and quit.
I wonder what the washout rate is in basic training for Southerners versus non-Southerners. At West Point you’re enduring the abuse for pretty much your entire first year, whereas basic is, at most, 2-3 months.
That’s interesting. As a Canadian (ergo, not a Southerner!) I know that this more than anything would deter me from joining the military. I could get into shape, follow orders, etc., but man would I not cope well with the kind of verbal abuse depicted in every war movie, ever.
30/35 years ago there was still some hitting and strange “company punishments” but between the Carter and Reagan years it really started to die down. I’m guessing by Clinton I it was pretty much done.
My Dad and uncles were pre-WW II and according to them it was pretty rare then as well. It wasn’t until full mobilization that a level of brutality was used basically to save time. Yes - a DI could take the time to explain “this is why we do this” as they did with Unc (enlisted 1936) and then work with him to be sure the lesson was fully integrated but that could take an hour - or a day. A buttstroke to the chin accomplished the same thing in minutes.
About 10 years ago I had to follow around a drill sergeant at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) in San Diego to get some footage for a montage as he was winning a local award and they wanted to document some of his work.
During that “day in the life” filming, many recruits were called “fucking retards” to their faces, but I never saw one of them being hit. At one point, he assembled the recruits in the barracks and was telling the story of how one of the building at MCRD was named for a Medal of Honor winner from the Vietnam War and one of the recruits fell asleep. Other than nudging him awake and yelling very loudly in his face, at which point he was marched out of the room, no physical contact was made with him. It was also surprising that when we interviewed him away from his recruits, he was an otherwise friendly, normal, and even likeable guy.
It changed after Viet Nam. I saw a R. Lee Ermy interview in which he explained that they doubled the size of the classes and shortened the time they had to train during Boot Camp. Since they were trying to keep the Marines alive and they were dealing with draftees the had to resort to physical discipline. By the time I was in army basic in 1989 that era was long gone. My father who was a 1945 Parris Island grad found the Boot Camp part of Full Metal Jacket very realistic.
I asked a buddy of mine who enlisted in the Marines in 1991 if it were true that drill instructors were not allowed to cuss at recruits anymore (I had heard that they weren’t). He looked at me incredulously and claimed that one if his instructors threw him into a wall one time and that they forced another recruit to jump off a 40 foot cliff. I don’t know that I believed him. He also told me a story about a fellow recruit who told an officer to go fuck himself (he thought it was another recruit imitating the officer) and that the DIs took him under their wing after that. According to him, they didn’t care for the green lieutenants in charge. I don’t know that I believe that either.