I would agree that the Marine Corps has it about right with respect to Basic Training, especially the graduation exercise.

With respect to Mark Conley's comment regarding Starship Troopers:

Notice though, that it wasnt all infantry...your service was geared to your ability. In Juans case, it was Mobile Infantry. when he sat down and made his decision to go career, he thought about why he joined in the first place.

I sure wasn't all MI! If you read Starship Troopers carefully, you should note that most candidates for Federal Service were not in the Armed Forces at all - most served as civil servants, researchers, etc. 8)

I'd say in the Moderate/Extreme area.


You can't let training be too soft. In Canada, they've actually softened Basic Training up a bit. They still holler at you, but it's not as bad anymore.

I haven't done Basic Training or BOTC yet, but I've got a good friend on BOTC now. He says it's hard, but anyone could make it through, providing they don't get the DI's mad enough.

Psycologically, you need to breakdown the recruit and then build them into what you want out of the type of troop you are creating. The Marine Corps boot has it right, but as others have said, every type of training needs to be longer.

I can remember when they instituted the extra basic infantry school to the entire Corps including the women Marines. This is probably the most important thing that General Gray did while commadant, but it still needs to be longer and more indepth. Each service member should be able to handle at least a defensive situation. As Future said, most of the AF would not be able to fire their weapon in a useful manner, which means him and his security forces would have no or little support from the base, this would allow even a small force to be able to disrupt flight operations.

One of the exercises that I took part in basically was that type of scenario. The 101st inf anti air was the inflitrators using smoky sams to "shootdown" the planes. Our job was to locate and pin down the inflitrators until a line platoon could get to the location and finish the job. This is not easy to do, think of the situation in Iraq now but within a jungle situtation. If the base would have had more than a MP detachment, say a line company or at least have the ability to put together an adhoc QRC, then we would not have had to essentially be inserted by helo and wait for the rest of the battalion to be moved to the airfield.

So, in short, everyone needs to have at least a 4 to 6 week infantry training course in my opinion and the basic training for every service needs to recognize the actual situations that the troops will bein the future and train accordingly. "The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war" is the best ideal to follow.

lil hulk you hit it right on the head. Boot aint suppose to be a summer camp and its not suppose to kill you but if you are the same as you were before you went to boot camp afterwords then whats the training been worth.

I think a watered down ranger school would be great. If we cut our military by 25% and trained them with 75% of ranger training our military would be twice as strong.

Originally Posted by Big_Z

I think a watered down ranger school would be great. If we cut our military by 25% and trained them with 75% of ranger training our military would be twice as strong.

RAngers are trained for specific tasks. So are other members of the military.
Different task==>different training.
That simple. Not every person in the army can be a ranger.

Extreme. This makes the best Marines!

I dont mean the exact ranger training. I mean how that training is implemented. Ranger training is meant to be far harsher then any combat a Ranger might face. Therefor they wont break down on the battlefield it would actually be the oppisite. They would think "this isnt shit compared to my training" in the most dire of conflicts.

Evening, troops.

I'm inclined to agree with the extreme method described in the poll, although I personally wouldn't refer to it as extreme; merely challenging, and of course, necessary. I've trained as an Inf squaddie, a Para officer ('jump-kill-die!!'), and now I'm in a more technical branch of the Army. Throughout, the training ethos was pretty much the same, just to make you autonomous, proactive, strong in spirit, self-reliance and resourcefulness, a team-worker and above all, an apprentice alcoholic...

Breaking you down and then rebuilding you into something better can't be bad for you, surely?

Well, that's my 2-pence worth.

i agree with the majority of opinions so far. I discuss this in my book and I think its essential we keep such a tough regimened bct cycle, as i quote in my book "tough training equals tough soldiers