I saw a Lt Cmdr do it to an entire duty section mustered on the hangar deck of the USS Tripoli. Unusual, but not unknown to happen. Especially since there are always those assholes who get the impression from Basic that the military is a culture where abuse of subordinates is one of the few perks of the job.
My former boss, a full bird, was fond of making enlisted and officers alike of pushing as a somewhat light-hearted punishment for failing to do something. I only saw him smile once though, even in photos.
Our old Wing Commander here would have you give him 22 pushups (he’d do them with you) if you failed to say “Airpower!” after he said “Team (Name-of-our-base-here)!” It’s worth mentioning that some of the NCOs in our squadron would say “Huah!” specifically to get the Wing King to do pushups with them. For the most part, depending on who you asked, it was fun (though depending on who you ask “Airpower!” is an incredibly lame thing to shout)
I never saw anyone forced to do push-ups outside of Basic, but you did occasionally run into officers a little too impressed with their own self-importance who would scream and yell at enlisted guys if someone didn’t salute fast enough, or thought they weren’t quite deferential enough.
Most officers barely noticed enlisted personnel, though. It was the NCO’s jobs to yell at them.
My dad was a captain in the Air force, and treated enlisted guys like his next door neighbors. Never pulled any kind of power trips on them. He was much more likely to yell at Colonel than to yell at an enlisted guy.
Let me clarify. I was specifically criticizing the scene from Crimson Tide.
It’s about fifteen minutes into the movie. Two officers are on a bus chatting and one –I’m pretty sure a pre-Tony Soprano James Gandolfini- nonchalantly greets one of the enlisted guys who’s boarding.
Gandolfini’s character then screams at him, “Address me as sir!” or something like that. The guy stands at attention while Gandolfini continues for a bit. The officer then asks him some trivia question from an old movie and then decides to make the enlisted guy drop and do some push-ups.
The idea that an officer, just for kicks, would lay into a random enlisted man who would then immediately comply is the type of thing that happens only in some screenwriter’s imagination.
That scene is a little over the top (it’s the fucking Marines, not the Army), but not by much. I went thru something like it in the Vietnam era Army. Drill Sergeants were “Drill Sergeant” or “Sergeant” or informally “Sarge”, not Sir. Things can be pretty strict in basic, but they get relaxed dramatically and quickly once you join a permanent party company after basic. It’s a game; put up with extreme bullshit for 8 weeks, then you can forget about it after. It might not be that way in the Marines.
I never went to any intermediate schools between basic and permanent party assignment, so I don’t know how that went.
As far as physical violence, it was supposed to not exist, but we quickly learned how the Army handles that. If you witnessed something and tried to report it, you were much worse off than if you kept your mouth shut. And if you didn’t own up to something the cadre didn’t like but suspected you did, the entire company would be severely punished until someone talked, and you betcha someone always came forward.
I remember during tear gas training, about 30 of us were led into a hut while wearing gas masks and the hut was filled with tear gas. To show us what it felt like, the sergeant told us all to take off our masks (except him, of course) and he would not let us put them back on or exit the building until EVERYONE took theirs off. One trooper was too scared to do it. The sergeant did nothing, but the other recruits made sure the troop complied PDQ even if they had to kill him to do it. That’s the Army way of ensuring compliance.
Another thing that I found odd was the NCOs insistence on using comparisons to women as the greatest insult of all. “You act like a bunch of girlies!” I wonder how the female drill instructors treated their female charges, comparing them to men?
We usually got, “You have to do it BETTER than the guys!”
As the only female in my section, I got every single s*** job and even better if it required me to carry extra gear.
They told us to take off the masks, then to make sure we got a good snootful of the stuff, they made us shout out our general orders. Nasty stuff.
I had a First Sergeant who’s nickname was GOA. Stood for God of Anger. We all felt his wrath.
My father was Parris Island class of 1945. He was very impressed with the beginning of FMJ. Thought it was dead on.
Does the tear gas training actually teach you anything?
Teaches you to trust your gas mask, for one.
I’ve had to tell guys so many times that tear gas training doesn’t translate to pepper spray… then when they get sprayed they come to find that out…
Everyday I observe people who PAY money to do that boot camp stuff in the park. A few of my friends have done it… and loved it. It brings back too many memories for me… no fuckin way…
It taught me I could sing “O Canada” without a mask if I was sufficiently determined.
Sure: it teaches you to keep your mask with you at all times in time of war. You can’t just hold your breath or fight through it. Tear gas will absolutely incapacitate you, and CN gas is very toxic. The CS gas they exposed us to was bad enough. Once you are incapacitated, somebody has to help you, which removes a second person from the fight.
Yes, they keep trying to train kids to not tear off their gas masks, even though it’s been years and years since they’ve added a chemical to make the wearer fill his mask with vomit.
Off-topic, but here we are talking about Full Metal Jacket: I always found FMJ objectionable, coming from the creator of Paths of Glory. PoG ends with the French soldiers singing “The Faithful Hussar” with the German girl, then being herded off to their deaths. FMJ ends with the Americans killing the Vietnamese girl (and, left on the cutting room floor, Animal Mother’s decapitating her), then singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme.
It taught us how important it was to be sure our masks were in working order. It also reinforced the herd mentality the army tries to instill in the troops and suppress the individual for the common good.
Interesting. But I don’t understand the significance of the phrase “Wall to Wall.”
I think it’s a colloquialism for “complete” or “leaving no stone unturned.”
It can also mean “to an extreme” or “all out”.
My understanding of “wall to wall” meant that, although an NCO would never strike a recruit, they would simply throw you into the walls from side to side. Or worse, make you do it to yourself. The military equivalent of “stop hitting yourself” from a schoolyard bully.