Army mulls tougher basic training for out-of-shape, undisciplined recruits

Army mulls tougher basic training for out-of-shape, undisciplined recruits | Fox News

Citing a disturbing trend of new soldiers lacking both proper discipline and physical fitness, senior U.S. Army leaders are calling for a tougher and longer basic training program to prepare troops for combat over the next decade.


“We have every reason to get this right, and far fewer reasons not to,” Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said at the Association of the United States Army's Global Force Symposium in Alabama on Monday. “That’s why we are considering several initiatives — from a new physical fitness regime to reforming and extending basic training — in order to ensure our young men and women are prepared for the rigors of high-intensity combat.”

While Esper didn’t divulge any details of what an extended Basic Combat Training (BCT) might look like, the Army has already floated the idea of adding two weeks to its 10-week program. A redesigned BCT is expected to be implemented by early summer.

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It's not surprising with the lack of activity in the lives of many youth. Discipline is a problem even at home these days.

There's a good team in there now running the Army.

Sec. Esper USMA 1986 is focused on personnel and quality while Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is reorienting Army to urban warfare given the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS and the like. Urban battles post 9/11 pointed out the need -- Milley commanded the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq and had been deputy commander of the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan among other major combat commands. Each of 'em is a brainy strategic thinker and action man. Esper was confirmed by the senate just months ago after Gen. Milley reportedly asked Sen. McCain to release McCain's hold on the Esper nomination.

Esper moved up Army ranks fast to LTC then went Reserve then National Guard after ten years active duty....

Esper was chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, from 1996-1998.[7] Esper served as a senior professional staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. He was also a senior policy advisor and legislative director for U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel.[8] He was policy director for the House Armed Services Committee. Esper served in the George W. Bush administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, where he was responsible for a broad range of nonproliferation, arms control, and international security issues. He was Director for National Security Affairs for the U.S. Senate under Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from 2004 to 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Esper


There's a lot of Army to make over so the two of 'em have things shaking and moving for real. Gen. Milley's been at it since 2015 already. The general is from Princeton Rotc, has a master degree in international relations from Columbia, a master's from Naval War College in national security and strategy, graduated Army Command and General Staff College and he's got some stuff from Harvard in global security and strategy. Esper also has a master's in international relations -- the Kennedy School at Harvard -- and Ph.D. from George Washington U. Milley and Esper are building a new force while the CnC stays busy lighting himself on fire out there.

American said:

Army mulls tougher basic training for out-of-shape, undisciplined recruits | Fox News


It's not surprising with the lack of activity in the lives of many youth. Discipline is a problem even at home these days.

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Personally I'd suggest longer than 12 the twelve weeks that Esper is suggesting.

A better idea would be to institute a standard for fitness before allowing recruits to be shipped to basic. Too many commanders and leaders, even at Basic Training, have this mentality that allocated PT time is only useful for maintaining fitness, rather than improving it.

We had soldiers, myself including, in my platoon, that couldn't do ten pushups in a PT test. Recruits are screwing over Drill Sergeants by sending them people who are in no way prepared for BCT.

Kal'Stang said:

Personally I'd suggest longer than 12 the twelve weeks that Esper is suggesting.

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Basic is ten weeks now and while I was in the Army after completing Rotc and during conscription it was eight weeks. Back then nobody ever thought eight weeks of BCT overburdened new recruits. Theze dayz it seems ten weeks isn't enough to turn a civilian kid recruit into a potentially lean mean fighting machine. That is, basic training is basic. The upscale stuff follows BCT.

Basic Officer Leadership Course is 16 weeks. Back when I did the Basic Officer Course (BOC) it was 12 weeks. (AKA: Old Benning School for Boys ha.) BOLC is different from OCS, the latter being 12 weeks. Then and now each BOLC and OCS are separate and different beasts. BOLC remains more like EP basic but with a focus on platoon and company weapons, tactics, leadership, command, accurate land navigation and the like. OCS focuses on weapons and tactics at the platoon and company level. BOLC continues to bang cadets who are spanking new out of college as 2LT smack in the face with a harsh reality. OCS takes in college grads most of whom already have active duty EP service as NCO. Which of course makes OCS grads agile at being butterbar 2LT platoon officers when compared to most of the Rotc 2LT guyz. For a while at least. Then the Rotc grad butterbars begin to catch up. Mostly.


The five most dangerous things in the Army...

An E-2 saying, "I learned this in boot camp...."
An E-7 saying, "Trust me, sir..."
A Second Lieutenant saying, "Based on my experience..."
A Captain saying, "I was just thinking..."
and a Warrant Officer chuckling, "Watch this ****..."


So let's take it a step at a time.

That is, the Army is a longer term project of combat readiness than are xy number of weeks of basic anything. Indeed, there are always several more weeks of advanced individual training of EP and officers. Everyone entering active duty is a person and not a machine, so the new twelve weeks of EP BCT is both a better start and a better foundation to develop over the next six months, nine months, 12 months and so on. We know prep, basic and advanced training, ftx and readiness don't occur overnight. Besides, those who prefer to get their balls busted during basic join the Marines. Always have, always will. They aren't called Jarheads for nothing. So I finish up the post with some good humor here that it takes all kinds in this business eh.

I don't think Basic is the problem. I don't think it's length is the issue.

Back when Ft. Puke did Advanced Infantry Training I went there thinking I was a tough customer after Basic. Boy was I wrong! Basic does it's job, it's up to the pud-knocker AITs to do theirs. Most REMF AITs have a 'campus' environment, self paced, and individualized computer training. They could use some more structure, some reminder these 'soldiers' are more than civilians who learned how to salute and when to salute.... well, most of the time anyways... :roll:

Too many times I hear now retired REMFs sneer they were the 'smart' ones who did 9 to 5, rarely deployed anyplace dangerous, and have no idea what's in an MRE. They revel in being so away from what the army is meant for- killing people and breaking things- they don't have the same drive and discipline an old grunt still has...

Because of the tempo back in those days we did 6 1/2 weeks of both Basic and AIT. It isn't the length of time but what you do with it. It isn't what they do in their active duty unit as their MOS, it's the command structure taking the time (and get dirty themselves) to remind the REMFs they are in an organization that does follow orders and expects discipline.

Not that long ago the 75th FIRES Bde HQ had a gang problem. Three soldiers killed 5 civilians and badly wounded one other robbing them. That command team was quietly removed and a new leadership team inserted- the problem went away as undesirables were kicked out and discipline enforced.

Leadership doing more of that and less 'management' with power point presentations of 'metrics' and 'processes' would be a great start.

But like many other 'leadership' types- they want to blame the troop rather than the leadership structure... eace

reminds me of this.

Not surprising...





American Adults Just Keep Getting Fatter

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/health/obesity-us-adults.html

Jredbaron96 said:

A better idea would be to institute a standard for fitness before allowing recruits to be shipped to basic. Too many commanders and leaders, even at Basic Training, have this mentality that allocated PT time is only useful for maintaining fitness, rather than improving it.

We had soldiers, myself including, in my platoon, that couldn't do ten pushups in a PT test. Recruits are screwing over Drill Sergeants by sending them people who are in no way prepared for BCT.

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When I went to basic training, there was a physical fitness test (not APFT standards) performed at the reception station. Trainees to passed went to a BCT company; trainees that didn't went to a PT company that was designed to get them up to the physical fitness standard needed to join a BCT company.

notquiteright said:

I don't think Basic is the problem. I don't think it's length is the issue.

Back when Ft. Puke did Advanced Infantry Training I went there thinking I was a tough customer after Basic. Boy was I wrong! Basic does it's job, it's up to the pud-knocker AITs to do theirs. Most REMF AITs have a 'campus' environment, self paced, and individualized computer training. They could use some more structure, some reminder these 'soldiers' are more than civilians who learned how to salute and when to salute.... well, most of the time anyways... :roll:

Too many times I hear now retired REMFs sneer they were the 'smart' ones who did 9 to 5, rarely deployed anyplace dangerous, and have no idea what's in an MRE. They revel in being so away from what the army is meant for- killing people and breaking things- they don't have the same drive and discipline an old grunt still has...

Because of the tempo back in those days we did 6 1/2 weeks of both Basic and AIT. It isn't the length of time but what you do with it. It isn't what they do in their active duty unit as their MOS, it's the command structure taking the time (and get dirty themselves) to remind the REMFs they are in an organization that does follow orders and expects discipline.

Not that long ago the 75th FIRES Bde HQ had a gang problem. Three soldiers killed 5 civilians and badly wounded one other robbing them. That command team was quietly removed and a new leadership team inserted- the problem went away as undesirables were kicked out and discipline enforced.

Leadership doing more of that and less 'management' with power point presentations of 'metrics' and 'processes' would be a great start.

But like many other 'leadership' types- they want to blame the troop rather than the leadership structure... eace

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Did you train at Tigerland?

American said:

Army mulls tougher basic training for out-of-shape, undisciplined recruits | Fox News


It's not surprising with the lack of activity in the lives of many youth. Discipline is a problem even at home these days.

Click to expand...

I credit the recruiter for making 100% sure both my sons were ready to become Marines. Both my boys were physically fit in my opinion, both, very active in sports and the gym but this recruiter took it upon himself on his own time to make sure any he signed up met his standards.

Two nights per week in the gym with a third night of roadwork or sprints. On weekends it was ether a football game or deep woods hiking with map and compass navigation,they also did a fair amount of gun range work. This recruiter and group of volunteer veterans really did their best to prepare these young men months before they went to boot camp. I don’t know if this type of thing is the norm but it should be.

My oldest now joins in on weekends to pay it forward, he just hosted on overnight winter camping trip were you X-country ski into the mountains and camp overnight in the snow. He also invites any current group to a yearly DMAT ( disaster medical assistance team) winter training exercise that he’s involved with. These promising recruits are sort of the ginny pigs or wounded needing rescue but its pretty cool stuff. Some of the training is ice rescue, stretcher rigging and repelling over rough terrain and helicopter landing site mapping and prep.

It is hard for me to actually comment on this, since I had never been through Army boot camp. But from everything I have seen in the past 10 years, things do need to change.

Part of this is already happening. One of my buddies who had been doing cadre duty for the last 6 years (bounced back and forth between that and instructor) graduated Drill Sergeant school last week. His choice was to do that, or get new orders and have no idea where he would be finishing his final 2 years.

But I have to question how much of the standards are because of the current generation, how much is related to MOS, and how much are simply because it is the Army.

My first 10 years were in the Marines, in Infantry. Fat or out of shape individuals were really never seen. I even went to boot camp with guys that were easily 60 pounds overweight, who passed height-weight standards by the time we graduated.

And being Infantry, we were worked so hard that being "fat" was rarely seen. And most of the time it was, it was in somebody who had been injured and was on light duty for a prolonged period of time (and was dropped off shortly after returning to full duty).

And in Infantry units everybody was in shape, not just us grunts. Admin clerks, cooks, radio techs, we all did the exact same 10-25 mile forced marches. We all were expected to do 4-6 mile runs 2-4 times a week.

But the single biggest difference during PT was when I discovered the Army does "Ability Group Runs". That is something I never saw in my entire 10 years in the Corps. There, we ran as a Platoon. The urge and group pressure to have everybody work together means that nobody "falls back". We all pushed each other, and the goal in training was more for distance than speed.

That is where I think the Army fails, big time. When a sub-par runner is placed in the slow group, they simply stay there. There is no incentive to get better. And because most of the runs are at the same 2 mile distance of the test itself, there is little to no training to exceed standards.

I still find it ironic that at the age of 53, I am able to out perform most Soldiers less than half my age in a PT test. If it was up to me, I would try to have as many young soldiers as possible do their first tour with a Combat Arms unit. Not go from AIT to some Mess Kit Accountability Unit in Colorado, where they are stationed with 80 other Soldiers who never did real physical conditioning since their own AIT.