Artilleryman
New member
First off, 2 rules for this question:
1. If you're some arrogant Marine, Seaman, or Airman who hates the Army and just wants to bash them, don't even waste my time answering this question. Nobody wants to hear it.
2. I AM a US Army soldier, so don't call me out for being some crackpipe anti-war hippie.
I graduated US Army basic back in august of last year at Ft. Sill, OK. I personally didn't think it was that hard. It was a shock and I was definitely miserable for a good 6 weeks of it, but it wasn't *that* bad.
Yesterday I was talking to our battalion commander. He was telling me about how he went through Army Basic back in 1984(He was enlisted before going officer). He said it was miserable and that the drill sergeants were allowed to beat the living crap out of you. He went on and on describing what he did in Basic back then. Just hearing about it made me squirm. Basic sounded about 10 times harder and more miserable back then.
I went through the last cycle of Basic training that trained in the way that it did. It changed after I graduated. From what I hear, now they have "snack time" and "nap time" and they get a full 8 hours of sleep every night.
I was lucky if I got 4 hours of sleep a night for the first 3 weeks.......without getting woken up in the middle of the night by a megaphone or a trash can lid just to get smoked. I remember the first 3 weeks I was literally getting food for breakfast and eating it while I was still in line since we got like 2 and a half minutes to eat once we sat down-if we sat down.
Why are they making Army Basic so much easier? I was in a Basic Training company of 180 and only 2 failed out, so the dropout rate wasn't a problem.
The Army still sees plenty of combat overseas regardless of MOS. You aren't "combat exempt" in any MOS. And with all these new "soft" soldiers that we're getting in our unit as a result of the new day care er-I mean Basic Training, I smell a much higher PTSD rate coming. I mean I'm just a PFC, but for god's sake the other day we had one of the new "soft" soldiers start crying after an NCO yelled at him for having his hands in his pockets.
I was told Basic Training has gotten easier due to the high technology found in the US military. But so what? Bullets are still whizzing by soldiers' heads, and as long as that still happens overseas, PTSD is gonna find its way through.
Who cares if they cry? I don't. If I get in a firefight, I want the guy next to me shooting back at the enemy, not crying.
1. If you're some arrogant Marine, Seaman, or Airman who hates the Army and just wants to bash them, don't even waste my time answering this question. Nobody wants to hear it.
2. I AM a US Army soldier, so don't call me out for being some crackpipe anti-war hippie.
I graduated US Army basic back in august of last year at Ft. Sill, OK. I personally didn't think it was that hard. It was a shock and I was definitely miserable for a good 6 weeks of it, but it wasn't *that* bad.
Yesterday I was talking to our battalion commander. He was telling me about how he went through Army Basic back in 1984(He was enlisted before going officer). He said it was miserable and that the drill sergeants were allowed to beat the living crap out of you. He went on and on describing what he did in Basic back then. Just hearing about it made me squirm. Basic sounded about 10 times harder and more miserable back then.
I went through the last cycle of Basic training that trained in the way that it did. It changed after I graduated. From what I hear, now they have "snack time" and "nap time" and they get a full 8 hours of sleep every night.
I was lucky if I got 4 hours of sleep a night for the first 3 weeks.......without getting woken up in the middle of the night by a megaphone or a trash can lid just to get smoked. I remember the first 3 weeks I was literally getting food for breakfast and eating it while I was still in line since we got like 2 and a half minutes to eat once we sat down-if we sat down.
Why are they making Army Basic so much easier? I was in a Basic Training company of 180 and only 2 failed out, so the dropout rate wasn't a problem.
The Army still sees plenty of combat overseas regardless of MOS. You aren't "combat exempt" in any MOS. And with all these new "soft" soldiers that we're getting in our unit as a result of the new day care er-I mean Basic Training, I smell a much higher PTSD rate coming. I mean I'm just a PFC, but for god's sake the other day we had one of the new "soft" soldiers start crying after an NCO yelled at him for having his hands in his pockets.
I was told Basic Training has gotten easier due to the high technology found in the US military. But so what? Bullets are still whizzing by soldiers' heads, and as long as that still happens overseas, PTSD is gonna find its way through.
Who cares if they cry? I don't. If I get in a firefight, I want the guy next to me shooting back at the enemy, not crying.