The culture that greets every recruit in boot camp seems to be at odds with the nominal American values of freedom, individuality, civil rights, et cetera… You are basically broken down, intimidated to within an inch of your life, and pushed to your physical limits while you are trained in basic military skills. Life in basic training seems little better than life in a prison. And the military life after basic training doesn’t seem all that much better – you carry this conditioning with you through your entire military career.
How much of this “Spartan” culture is necessary to create an effective military? Would a more “relaxed” military really be that much less effective than the one we have today?
Unfortunately, we don’t fight wars with baking contests or football matches. People in the military aren’t living our social goals - they are protecting them. That requires some very tough dedication, training, and trust. So far, the best way anyone has figured to get a soldier to storm a beach under a hail of gunfire is to tear them down and rebuild them in a military mold. Not the nicest thing to do, but as long as they stay volunteers, whatever.
Speaking as someone who has been through boot camp and hated it intensely, I will say that I think I derived some benefits from it and that there is a method to the madness. All the screaming and yelling (and I went through when they could still swear at you and threaten you with violence) eventually inures you to psychological stress and you learn to stay calm and function under stressful or chaotic situations. I also learned how to operate with little sleep (and I don’t just mean learning to function while tired, I mean you really can learn how to “power nap,” you sort of train yourself to really drop off quickly and get some concentrated REM sleep). All the tedious, obsessive inspections of the way your underwear is folded or how your rack is made up train you to be thorough with tasks and pay attention to detail.
For better or for worse, the tearing down of individualism really does help a group to bond and work together for common goals. Discipline is also necessary in the field. Orders have to be followed quickly and correctly.
Boot camp dosn’t last forever (even though it seems like it) and I think the techniques that are used are effective and have a purpose. It’s not just gratuitous sadism or humiliation.
Oh, the PT is great too. The best physical condition I’ve ever been in was directly after Basic but I never would have had the self-disciplne to get that way if I hadn’t had a murderous CC running directly behind me on a two mile run promising to “stick his dick up my ass” if I slowed down.
In retrospect, the physical training was probably the least demanding part of Boot Camp (at least in the Navy, I’m sure it’s different in the Marines and maybe the Army). It’s all the head games and emotional stress that’s hard.
I believe that if nothing else, it also serves to weed out the emotionally/mentally weak.
This goes closely along with what Zagadka said, but war is not a pretty business and an intimidating basic training program will discourage those who don’t think they can do it from trying. Also, those who can’t make it through a stressful period of basic training are likely people who wouldn’t make it through a stressful combat situation.
You exercised you freedoms by joining up. Your civil rights are restricted by necessity. Your individuality is given up for the good of the cause, and is slowly allowed to reassert itself over time.
You are indeed intimidated and broken down, because it has been determined that stressing someone in a non-hazardous environment will cause any sort of physical/mental/emotional defects to appear in short order, therefore enabling a determination about someone’s suitability to the military, i.e. getting the job done under combat conditions. Life in Basic is not really comparable to a prison. Prison is demeaning and degrading, whereas Basic is a life-altering and esteem-building experience, in my opinion. It’s a glass half-full/empty sort of thing. Someone who knows that there is an end and that life will be immeasurably better will be more optimistic.
Absolutely all of it. It was the greatest experience of my life. Once you go beyond formal training, the military is “relaxed”. Being in the Air National Guard my life is as relaxed as can be, and yet when the fighting begins, all of the lessons learned due to the stressful and intensive environment are immediately recalled, which is the whole point.
The military doesn’t want unthinking robots who can only march on a parade field. They want people who can adapt and overcome extremely bad circumstances instinctively and then go home and be normal, well-adjusted members of society when their time is up. Teaching them basic discipline and then gradually loosening the reins until eventually there aren’t really any at all has been proven time and again to be the best method of instruction. It’s akin to taking the first 18 years of your life and condensing it into anywhere from 7 to 13 weeks. Same lessons, same punishments, and same rewards, it’s just much more focused and therefore more memorable.
There was an elite nazi Germany troop whose motto was “Sweat saves Blood”. I suppose its all about giving soldiers the best mental and physical preparation for a real fighting situation. No one wants to lose lives in order to give soldiers a better peace lifestyle. Dosage might be too much I agree at times… but the training is necessary.
Wasn’t there a film where the guy says about the military:
“We are here to defend democracy… not to practice it!”
I’ve got to admit that all the yelling and hazing that I see portrayed and talked about didn’t happen when I went through Basic army training and Aviation Cadet training in WWII. In our case it didn’t seem to be necessary. However, air war is relatively impersonal and maybe Basic in the infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers would have been different.
Hmmm … okay … there is something to be said for the notion that, when the soldier/marine/sailor/airman is on a real assignment that gets dangerous, he can fall back on his tough training, say to himself “I’ve made it through Basic, I can make it through this,” and focus on the task at hand without freaking out.
But if part of the purpose of this initial stressing is to weed out the unsuitable, how come recruits aren’t allowed to quit?
Maybe a legacy Prussian/Imperial unit. Sounds like something the Prussians would have coined.
Well, that has carried on through the last 50+ years, with the USAF being stereotyped as the “cushy” service for both Basic and deployed-duty – though it’s really only so by comparison to, say, the Marines or the Army Combat Arms. But I’m sure Doors can bear witness that there is yelling enough at Lackland.
Part of the reason the Basic Training regimen tends towards shock-and-awe-ing the recruit, is that in Advanced Training they don’t have the time to handle classes that will be behaving like a typical roomful of high-schoolers. The truth is they’re taking the average Joe/Jane Civilian right-off-the-street/farm, and the military not only knows for a fact s/he enters without the technical skills of modern war, it has no way of knowing coming in if s/he has all the physical, mental and emotional tools to handle it, after a youth spent on TV, McDonald’s, and hangin’ out at the mall or at the feed store. So they put them to the test and get them used to the ways of the military. As mentioned, it gets less rigid in regular-duty billets (though some billets, e.g. shipboard, or land-force combat arms, necessarily require a level of continuous “spartanness” or else someone gets hurt).
They are allowed to quit in a way. I am also ex-Navy. What usually happens is a recruit will be “set back” two weeks in training and get to do the same thing all over again in a two week time warp. This is known as “bagging out” of the company of recruits. You then “bag in” to a company two weks behind you. I never bagged out, but I saw the process. If a “bag in” continues to be substandard, he was subjected to “IT” or individual training. This was designed to keep the pressure up. You could also be given a dreaded and threatened “motivational tour” or perhaps a “mini-mo” if deemed necessary. Every once in a while, someone would disappear. I assume they were found unworthy after individual attention and given a convienience of the government discharge. To be found unworthy, all you would have to do is give up or appear unstable…neither of which would be difficult for most people.
They were when I was in. You were discharged (IIRC) “other than honorable” and were not eligible for any benefits and were not allowed to enlist in any other service.
This was pretty much my experience too. I even remember the dreaded “mo-tours.” If a recruit was eventually determined to be untrainable or “unsutiable for military service” he was sent to ROF (Recruit Outprocessing Facility) for a week or so, processed out and given what was called an Entry Level Separation, which was technically different than a discharge.
You could quit too, but they didn’t call it that. They call it “refusing training.” I saw people do it. One dude got up and threw his cover on the floor while we were getting our asses “cycled” off for some offense which I don’t remember. He said “Fuck this, I’m done.”
The CC got all pissed and hollered at him “Are you a quitter, boy?”
“Yes sir.”
Dude was in ROF that night. Officially if you refuse training, they are kicking you out for being untrainable. They want to make it sound like it’s their choice, not the recruit’s.
But it’s quitting for all practical purposes. If you refuse to train, they’ll let you go.
Thanks for the correction, DtC and Evil One. It’s been a longer time than I care to mention and it’s all kind of hazy now. I do remember the dreaded mini-mo although thank goodness I never had one. I do seem to recall that the sequence was IT for minor infractions (usually no more than a day) and that once you were assigned to a mini-mo you were pulled from your company and moved back a week. After that, if you still screwed up it was out the door with you.
I suppose the sequence has probably evolved over the years though.
I’d like to remind everybody of the reality series Boot Camp.
The contestants are sent to a real boot camp with real drill instructors. The DI’s yelled, insulted, and generally acted like you’d expect.
As part the finale, the final two contestants had to run an obstacle course. The female contestant couldn’t get over the wall. After a while, it was obvious she’d lost the obstacle course. She didn’t give up. The DI’s gathered and encouraged her, reminding her of all the tough things she’d done during training. She kept trying for hours. Finally, she made it over. The DI’s all cheered her for not giving up. She said it was one of the greatest moments of her life.
Several of the contestants actually thanked the DI’s and mentioned how much they respected them.
Boot camp is tough for a reason. DIs yell at you for a reason. Besides what other posters have mentioned, a soldier in the field knows that any other soldier has been through the same training and ordeals.