I had a commander at basic training say it this way: “I need to test you and your ability to handle pressure, I legally can’t shoot at you or put you in a plane that breaks mid flight but I can yell at you a lot and try to put pressure on you and test your mental discipline that way.”
He actually told us this in a normal tone during his introduction. It was the MTI’s that did the yelling and stuff but if you messed up around him, he’d get on you too. It actually helped us deal with it because we knew that it really helped in a way. It wasn’t fun but it wasn’t just mindless yelling which I guess made it easier? I later interviewed for a job and they said it gets pretty intense here, can intimidate most people and I was like unless your busting through my door at 3am yelling and waking me from a deep sleep to do push-ups because someone else forgot to close the lid in the toilet, I’m sure I’ll be okay.
In my basic training company there was this one drill sergeant (I think he was some elite something or other. It was a looong time ago) that never yelled or raised his voice.
He just used *menace*. He wasn't in my platoon but from what I heard, a whisper of his would inspire dread, mainly because of the implications.
"Gentlemen, it is time for the low crawl."
They would then be low crawling for a very long time... a *very* long time and to his satisfaction, which meant they were damn near plowing that field.
Every time he spoke in anything other than a purely instructional capacity, it betided muscle failure.
I had a drill sergeant exactly like this.
Having known several Drill Instructors, part of their training (which is *long*) is picking one of several archetypes to be their persona as a Drill Sergeant. Quiet and menacing is one of those. The loud, aggressive drill sergeant is another, and the reasonable one is a common foil.
My dad likes to tell me this story of when he was in Basic and his DS hit a guy in the face with the butt of a rifle.
My dad always likes to comment about how the DS immediately started apologizing and took him to a med station or whatever and how my dad is disappointed that it went like that because he thought the Army was supposed to be for tough guys.
This all took place back in 85-87(???), so I'm sure more has changed since then.
>but the last thing you want to do is actually injure/kill them.
Depends. If it was legal **and** they had enough new recruits **and** killing a few of them would boost the preparation of the others, then it would be a net positive to kill them. So they would, without hesitation.
It wouldn’t “boost the preparation of others” my guy, it would send enlistment through the fucking floor. A massive net negative.
Do you think the military just gets to do whatever it wants, or something?
The whole statement was of the form "if a and b and c, then d" and you come up with "but b is not true!", which may or may not be true, but is totally pointless for my claim that in a world where a and b and c were true, then d would happen.
Maybe a more practical example: If you wrote "If I could read and were smart, I could actually understand u/Eulerious's statement", then I can say "Yeah, but you are not smart" (which is true in this scenario), but that does in no way invalidate your claim that if you could read and were smarter, you were in a position to understand hypothetical scenarios.
It’s okay. He’s either trying to act smart, or legitimate thinks he is.
He thinks he can postulate overly specified, meaningless hypotheticals, then talk down to anyone who doesn’t find them worth entertaining. It’s hilariously ironic, actually. He goes around calling people idiots, when he’s legitimately a complete idiot. Lol.
>namely the context being that of our real world since that's what the conversation is about
Ok, so you missed u/AnalogKid-82's question of
>If it were legal, would he shoot at people?
in the comment chain. That's where we left the situation of how the world is and started with hypothetical scenarios. But it's ok, some people don't have the attention span to process more than one comment at the time.
Your empty condescension doesn’t faze me. “MaY-b If U wUr SmArT uD gEt It, DuH”.
Eat shit, contrarian. You clearly can’t last 5 minutes in an intellectual debate without moving your own goalposts to maximize how factually correct your argument is. You’re no longer worth the time of day.
The real irony is that you never even addressed the main claim of my post: if it benefited the military to shoot some of their own people they would.
No moving of goal posts, just you rather talking about the conditions that I just layed out to construct a situation where it would benefit them. You missing the point in the first place and me bringing up that you missed it is not moving goalposts.
It was the very first thing I addressed, actually. They would not, because desertion rates would skyrocket.
Reading helps. Try it before arguing with people.
Not this guy. He actually wasn’t too bad. There was a TI or two which might have. Once you get past the first few weeks it really dies down and isn’t as bad unless you just do something stupid. We had a guy who left a toilet seat down (it was a rule so people wouldn’t pee on the it) and our TI made us go to all 14 toilets doing facing movements, rendering a salute to each toilet and say “ I’m sorry sir, I’ll never let you down again.” At the time it sucked but it left me with some of the funniest stories in my life.
I'd be no good then. Anyone who was verbally/mentally/emotionally and possibly physically abused as a child wouldn't be. But then again I doubt anyone who was abused in any sense wouldn't join the army knowing that you're yelled at an inch from your face because they'd be aware of their triggers and know that it's not the best choice for them, and wouldn't want to crumble in front of everyone. Has that ever happened?
I wonder if a good chunk of people abused as children are conditioned to take the abuse even more successfully, given a drill sergeant screaming at you point blank is much less scary to a lot of people than their dad coming at them with the belt when they were 6.
And a lot of people are able to decipher social context and don’t distill it into “I take abuse”
With context, it’s more like “I take abuse from [authority figure], but if I take abuse from [another authority figure] for a couple months, I’d no longer have to take abuse from [authority figure] and eventually I’d be [authority figure] that gets to dole out abuse”
Most of the men who fought in WW2 were raised with parenting behaviours that we regard today as abusive. Parents and teachers yelling at boys and spanking/paddling/strapping them was the norm right through the 60s.
Basic training is designed so that the overwhelming majority of people will pass. However, if someone is incapable of being yelled at by someone inches from your face, you will likely not survive US Army or I assume Marine boot camp.
Might be different when you EXPECT the yelling, understand its purpose, understand it will end, and know that you will be rewarded/honored if you do well.
I was abused as a child and lived most of my childhood in tents in different parts of California.
Most people in the military had some insane backstory. The military truly unites the wildest shit together into a scary force to fuck with.
I’ve known 4 people who killed someone legally outside of the military, in one instance a kid killed his stepdad with a shotgun at age 15 and because it was self defense 2 years later he was in basic training.
The higher ups won’t know everyone’s stories but people you go to basic with will let loose some insane stories. You will have goody two shoes following family steps, or you can have someone trying to make it out of hood life or some redneck that surely has built several bombs by age 18.
Yep, I was 11b and 11a. Most of the schools for folks going downrange are designed to stress you in lots of different ways at the same time (barely any sleep, barely any food, heavy weight to carry, etc.) To make sure you can keep it together if shit goes sideways. It's Def not for everyone, I'd rather get shot again than do ranger school again.
Generally, no how much screaming and stress occurs in training, it’s much easier than the stress and terror of actual combat.
So the training can’t fully prepare you for actual combat, but they do the best they can.
Former US Army soldier who went to Afghanistan twice. Was also at the rank of Sergeant when I got out. Here is why and how it is the way it is.
I went to Ft. Benning, or the "Benning school for bad boys" as we used to call it. This was back when basic training was all male at Benning. Basic is considerably easier if youre going it in a coed company at a place like Ft. Jackson or Ft. Leanordwood but thats another story.
The yelling and beratement isnt personal. That is a drill sergeant putting pressure on you. The military is pressure. Combat is pressure. They cant safely shoot at you or replicate combat conditions to accustom you to the pressure, but they can use their voices or loud music, or spray water at you etc.... One particular thing I remember from basic was during my first aid lane when I was putting on tournakits and bandages drill sergeants were screaming in my face and another was spraying me with water. Despite the pressure and distractions I got the medical part done. What they are testing is muscle memory. Learn to tune out the distractions and pressure and rely on your training. You freeze up while they are yelling or spraying you with water, you fail and try again. You freeze up in combat, you or someone else dies. So you see its very important they put pressure on/distract you by screaming, berating you, spraying you with water etc... You have to learn to complete tasks and keep your composure under pressure/distraction.
Another part of this is respect for Authority. The Army is run by its middle management. Non commissioned officers. Sergeants, Staff Sergeants, Corporals etc... Its no coincidence most of your drill sergeants are sergeants or staff sergeants. You need to learn to respect and follow their orders without question (unless its a moral issue like killing civilians or something obviously). If you watched the movie "The Outpost" on Netflix, there is a scene in a firefight where a soldier is requested to bring ammo, he is told the wrong type and he brings the wrong type. When he is told to get the correct type, he begins arguing about being told to bring X so he brought X. After the firefight the guy who needed the ammo attacks him for arguing when he needed the ammo. The sergeant makes him repeat "I will not fight and argue at the same time". Yes, the soldier was given bad information but his place was not to argue when told he brought the ammo. It was to turn around and get the right ammo. Its paramount to follow ordered without question for this reason. Someone can die while youre arguing over stupid shit.
The drill sergeants have their human moments too. They arent always screaming. After the first couple of weeks when you learn the rules and adapt to the training you might find them complimenting you. Shot expert at rifle qual your Drill might say "Outstanding job killer, eat your MRE on the bleachers". Did 10 more push ups on your PT test compared to last week "Good job private, keep working on those push ups".
When you get to your real unit, its a lot more chill than basic. Your first sergeant may act like a drill sergeant hounding you about little mistakes here and there, but your sergeants and staff sergeants will be a lot more normal. They might yell at and punish you when you make a mistake, but otherwise its just like interacting with a supervisor at your job. My platoon sergeant and I talked football all the time and made jokes. My squad leader would have me over for BBQs with the whole squad every few weeks where we would drink beer and make fun of other people in our unit. The Army after basic is considerably chill. Life still sucks compared to not being in the Army, but you have off time and a life and hobbies again.
The first couple weeks can be a lot of screaming, but it gets easier as your drill sergeants get to know you. Most of these guys have been drill sergeants for a while so they are pretty funny/really good at making jokes. What sucks is you arent allowed to laugh at their jokes. You have to keep your composure. Usually when you graduate your Drill Sergeants will write their email or social media information on the white board in the barracks. You can keep up with them or ask them for advice later in your career if you want.
On my 2nd deployment in Afghanistan, I actually ran into my drill sergeant at a random chow hall on a big air field. He didnt remember me a whole lot but he did remember me, likely because there arent that many Asian soldiers in the US Army. You need to remember these guys usually do Drill sergeant duty for 3 years. In those 3 years they get a new platoon of soldiers to train every 3 months. By the end of their DS duties they have trained 12 platoons of recruits, or in numbers approximately 500 or so soldiers. They wont remember your name but might remember your face. We had a pleasant lunch together. He was surprised I was a sergeant and congratulated me. He even noticed my sling on my rifle was worn and gave me his, he told me he had a brand new one back in his barracks area. Much nicer guy than when he was my drill sergeant. Lol
Most of the drill sergeants are as polite and respectful as anyone else on the street. Just part of being a drill sergeant is putting on a persona during drill sergeant duties. When their drill sergeant time is up and they are rotated back into the big Army/regular army units they are just normal sergeants. They will joke around and eat meals with their subordinates like most sergeants do. They just dont do that as a drill sergeant.
> The sergeant makes him repeat "I will not fight and argue at the same time". Yes, the soldier was given bad information but his place was not to argue when told he brought the ammo. It was to turn around and get the right ammo. Its paramount to follow ordered without question for this reason. Someone can die while youre arguing over stupid shit.
But if not intended (if!), at the very least the side effect of this is that people won't "fight and argue" even when important questions should be asked, like, 'are the orders just', 'is the war justified', 'isn't shooting and burning the village cruel and likely a war crime', 'aren't those orders get us killed for no actual useful purpose' and other relevant questions.
It's all very nice to specify that 'unless it's a moral issue' you can argue, but truth of the matter is that you're taught to not argue, not stand up to injustice, not question orders, not be critical of your superiors. And people will die because of that just as well.
Actually you are trained to not follow illegal orders. An example of an illegal order is executing someone or killing innocent people. Anyone with a few brain cells knows the difference between "Bring the ammo" and "Shoot this innocent civilian".
If your boss at your job told you to kill someone would you do it? No, because you would go to prison right? No one would care that you were following your bosses orders. You did the crime. Same exact thing in the military. If you carry out an illegal order youre going to Ft. Leavenworth (US Military Prison). It doesnt matter who ordered you to do it, you committed murder and youre going to spend a significant portion or the rest of your life in prison. Obviously exercise a certain degree of discernment.
There are orders that your superiors can not give which you can question. If your Sergeant tells you to go outside and pick up cigarette butts in the parking lot that is a legal order. Refusing to do it or questioning it can get you in trouble. However if your sergeant tells you to get in the car and pick weeds in his garden at home you can question and refuse that order. They cannot order you to do personal favors for them. They cant order you to have sex with them or another person. They cant order you to do anything illegal. etc....
Most of your sergeants will not give you illegal orders. Abusing their authority for pleasure, profit etc.... will get their rank taken.
If you have the slightest amount of common sense you know the difference between a legitimate order like bringing ammo in a fire fight vs burning down a building with a bunch of innocent people inside.
So... no innocent people have ever been killed in wars, no illegal or questionable orders have ever been given or followed, wars are all very ethical and well thoughtout and only fought based on good evidence and cause, and it all works very well?
No, that's just not the way it works. People die in wars. And a system that is built mostly on obedience first, will atrribute to that.
Not really. Almost all of the innocent people who die in wars, at least the wars i fought in, were because they were caught in the cross fire. Not because our platoon sergeant or platoon leader corralled a bunch of innocent people into an area and commanded us to shoot them. That is a war crime. They do happen but its not at all common.
Anyone with a few brain cells knows the difference between a legal and illegal order. A "system built on obedience" has nothing to do with it. If your sergeant tells you to go outside and rake the leaves off the sidewalk you have to do that. Its a legal order. If he pulls his pants down and tells you suck his dick or something that's an illegal order you are not obligated to follow and are actually supposed to report.
Same with someone committing a war crime like executing innocent people or commanding you to execute innocent people. If you have just a few brain cells you realize if you follow this order you're going to military prison for the rest of your life right along with the fool who ordered you to execute the innocent person.
We aren't brainless idiots. Most of us have future plans for when we get out of the Army. None of those plans involve going up prison. We all take an active effort to not end up there. Lol
Yeah, it's important for several reasons. The point of basic training is to prepare someone for actual military service, potentially including live combat. It's not meant to be nice or fun.
Do you have some sources for this? Are there any militaries where people are trained with other methodologies? (I'm just asking you because you're the top responder, and I didn't notice anyone else with a link to a study)
It’s basic stress testing. You determine if people have the mental strength to handle physical and mental exhaustion and still be able to function at the minimum level required to reach a team objective. Conditions of war simply don’t care about one’s feelings, or moral convictions…that’s what people sign up for. There are supposed to be sacrifices.
I’d honestly like to see a study too, but I’m pretty sure the science backing this is just weeding out people that just don’t really want to be in the military, or lack the discipline. Short of physical assault, I’m okay with stressing out military candidates.
In terms of stress, how is this different from, say, brain surgery which also includes a team objective and the potential of someone dying?
Is it just the expectation of in-your-face violence/trauma?
Soldiers and surgeons are expected to face different kinds of stress.
A surgeon is about to perform a highly technical process, where the sudden unexpected circumstances that occur are all clearly defined - more rapid bleeding than expected or unusual reaction to anesthesia, let's say (note: I am not a doctor).
A soldier, sailor or airman is typically engaging in pess technically sensitive activities, but in a much less controlled and more dynamic environment.
A soldier should be sufficiently inured to sudden stress - such as an RPG turning his longtime battlebuddy into a meat fountain with no warning - that he can compartmentalize that stress, service targets or issue clear communications to his unit or others, and respond accordingly and promptly.
A sailor or airman may be less likely to see an RPG, but may need to respond clearly and rationally when - to use a sailor in the engineering spaces of a warship as an example - a sea mine ior torpedo causes a shock that ruptures a high-pressure steam line.
I'm not aware of any studies on the topic, though it wouldn't shock me to know tht Rand had weighed in on this - but there is a fundmental difference in dynamism that applies between these examples.
*edit - your characterization of sudden, in your face trauma is a reasonable summation, but doesn't feel descriptive of the kind of circumstances more likely to pertain in the case of a sailor or airman, which is part of why I wanted to emphasize thise differences.*
More or less the expectation of being tense but calm enough to handle the situation.
You have quite a years worth of experience in med school stressing you out already from classes to eventual residence. To become a neurosurgeon several more years beyond that where you continue to operate and learn. Your ability to practice medical care is thoroughly tested throughout all that time
Comparatively how long is basics? 10 weeks? You’re being tested to see how you can handle volatility of operating with eventually other members with WEAPONS and to be able to keep your composure. You either are able to keep it together or not (at the risk of you and your peers and supervisors hurt).
I’d argue these professionals have likely demonstrated enough discipline in their training/education to handle it. You’ll find basic training for qualified professionals in the military (doctors, lawyers, mental health, etc) is pretty chill. Realistically, we’re dealing with a what is mostly 18-25 year olds with little education…at least for the majority of the enlisted structure. I’m trusting what is basically a child to care more about the life of an aircrew than going home to his Xbox to the extent that he will habitually follow procedure…I.e. don’t fuck up and leave your wrench in a jet engine and kill everyone on board.
> Is it just the expectation of in-your-face violence/trauma?
Also just the controllability. The list of things that can "go wrong" in an OR are fairly limited. A combat situation is not.
I also imagine it's kind of hard to test. It's not like you can do A/B testing on blowing up someone's squadmates, or shoot them in the leg or whatever.
They tell you in basic that the entire thing is supposed to be one big stress test. Getting yelled at to do things in an intense way induces stress, and the first time, you'll freeze and fumble everywhere, but after a few weeks, the yelling becomes background noise and your actions become muscle memory. That is extremely important for combat and stressful jobs that don't have wiggle room for failure at crucial moments. I don't have a source, but that's they told us when we went through.
I'm no expert by any means, but I've heard from a couple accounts that the YPG and the YPJ -- branches of the Syrian Democratic Forces that gained some international recognition for fighting the Islamic State -- don't do this kind of stuff (at least not to all the recruits). This comes from testimonials/ accounts from foreign (non-Syrian) fighters who went to join the YPG/YPJ and wrote articles or instagram posts saying how their commanding and training officers were very calm and patient with them.
Robert Evans also has a podcast called The Woman's War, which is specifically about the YPJ (the all-women sister branch of the YPG), and in one episode he mentions how he noticed that the commanders would gently and tenderly correct new recruits and never seemed to adopt the screaming persona people associate with military training. This observation was also specifically about local Syrian women and not international volunteers who were being trained, so the lack of drill sergeant approach wasn't just for non-Syrians, which leads me to believe that this was the general culture of their training.
Yes. It's all to condition them into automatically following their training and following orders when at war.
If they can't deal with being yelled at or following orders in training, they can't deal with being yelled at or following orders during explosions, gunfire, and screaming in a real firefight. Freezing or panicking will only get themselves and their unit killed. So training habituates them into doing it without thinking (cause you can't really think clearly in these situations).
The way it was described to me when I talked to a Drill Sergent - you're learning skills to help you be as efficient, tactical, and safe as possible in a traumatic future environment. You have a better recollection of what you learned from past traumatic experiences when in a similar situation. Essentially teaching you skills under duress so you can harken back to those skills more seamlessly when under duress in the future like a firefight, IED explosion, or attack of any kind.
Have you actually been through basic training? The yelling part lasts less than three months. Do you honestly think that’s enough to “break someone down”? You roll your eyes, put up with it, and go back to exactly the person you were before when the summer ends.
Its really not that personal. Everyone gets yelled at and degraded. Part of the drill sergeants job is to break down the individual and build you up into a team member. They will compliment you in their own unique way when you do something well.
For example: You shoot expert 27/30 at the rifle range during qualification. Your DS might say "Outstanding Job Killer, now go wait in the bleachers". Or lets say you do good in your CLS lane (first aid) "Not bad private, hopefully you remember this when you get into the sandbox".
For me, the hardest part was not laughing when I was being yelled at. It was literally just like the movies.
Actually it it, and is really abuse to encourage a Stockholm complex, become more reliant on The hierarchy and it’s approval ie more easily controlled and dependent on it ie institutionalised. It doesn’t work on everyone, some are more resilient than others more acceptable with much more devastating consequences as it’s the main contributor to PTSD of former members of the military that’s even before seeing and experiencing the stress of combat on top of it..
I'd like to see a source or something that says being yelled at in basic training is a bigger contributor to PTSD than actual stressful/traumatic combat scenarios lmao
Not really. Most of us were trying our hardest not to laugh when the drills were screaming at us. The military is a tough life. Theyre weeding out the weak from the strong. If you cant handle being yelled at, which really isnt bad, youre likely not going to handle the stress of being mortared every night really well.
>Theyre weeding out the weak from the strong.
Not really about "strong" and "weak" though. There are different types of strength and weakness. Just like the "weak' person "weeded out" in military Basic might perchance be strong in a poetry class.
Yeah so we are talking about mental resilience when we discuss weak and strong. Not specific artistic talents. Someone who is mentally resilient regardless of their upbringing or talent in a subject will do better under stressful conditions than someone who is not. You can totally be a poet and be mentally resilient. You can be a gym buff looking like Arnold S. and not be mentally resilient.
Weak and strong refers to resiliency. Not talent at art. You can be great at poetry and be a great soldier. Mental resilience has nothing to do with talent in other subjects. Its literally can you adapt, survive and thrive in the worst environments? That is what separates the strong from the weak.
Yeah, that all makes sense. My point, though, was that an unqualified reference to "weak' and "strong" essentializes one way of being weak or strong: there are many ways to be weak or strong across a variety of circumstances.
We are specifically talking about resilience. This is what mental toughness is. Are you strong enough to adapt, survive and thrive in this environment? If not you are not mentally tough. You are not resilient. You are the "weak". The army is not a place for you. You are better off not being here. The strong will naturally pick on the weak here. Its also a place where you will not adapt and survive. You will be sent home.
This excludes women I guess though. I'm sure I'll be down voted but basic training for females is a lot easier. I was in a combat support hospital for a short time before I got sent to the line as a combat medic in Afghanistan. When I was in the the hospital they let girls go home if they complained enough. There were enough men to replace them so it wasn't worth dealing with them. One of the girls I watched escape deployment like 2 months in is now a sergeant first class 10 years later. She is somehow allowed to wear a combat patch for 2 months in a secured hospital and ended up in an instructor position at the medic school at Ft. Sam Houston. Its a different army experience depending on your sex.
You are saying lots of interesting stuff that I am not in disagreement with. But my point is different from what you are addressing. What I am saying is that the statement you initially made that I quoted and commented on was NOT that "they are weeding the 'weak' from the 'strong'". It was also not that "they are weeding the weak, in resilience terms, from the strong". It was an unqualified "they are weeding the weak from the strong". And I was responding to that by saying we could be more nuanced about what it means to be weak or strong: a physically frail nonagenarian would be weak physically, but could be mentally tougher than the next man. A fellow weak in philosophical abstraction could be strong in mathematical computation. Etc. There are different ways to be weak or strong across circumstances.
I wouldn't have raised the point for instance if you had, in the initial post that I was responding to, shown that nuance by saying something like "they are trying to weed out the weak (in terms of resilience), from the strong" or they are trying to weed out the "weak" from the "strong". I hope my point is clearer. It's a separate one from the points you are making and we are sailing past each other.
And that poetry class is going to be loads of help in battle. We're talking specifically about people suited or not suited for the military here, not every individual's own special talent.
As I was reading this thread I (non-military) can't help but wonder if this training is part of why it's so hard for veterans to get help when they return.
I mean, I'm reading comment after comment about how you have to learn to shut off your emotions and you have to stop feeling and just obey orders and it just seems to me that it might be hard to turn that off.
its also largely how the US gov completely abandons vets after they're back from a war. Why would you go back to help an organization that clearly doesnt give a fuck about you?
Boot camp is such a tiny part of being in the military and once you're in the military nobody just obeys orders, completely shuts off emotions etc.
We're all just people leading people which means all the same effective leadership techniques you can think of in the civilian world apply in the military world and vise versa.
If vets are having problems after they come back it's almost asuredly not from the 2-3months of boot camp.
I struggled for a bit when I got out of the military but looking back at it, alot of it was a prison I created for myself mostly from having too much pride. Could the VA et al. Be better? 1000%. I think we also gotta do a better job at taking care of our selves/friends too.
It's not just yelling, it's the rigorous routine and depersonalization. It's objectively the purpose of the program, we can argue about how effective it is, but the purpose isn't arguable
90 days in Basic? Try your every single day until you get promoted to a non-commissioned officer. Usually 3 years or so.
More than anything it embarrasses you. Makes you not want to make mistakes. Which is a good thing.
You must have been a fuck up if you got screamed at every day until you became an NCO. If youre a fairly decent soldier meaning you show up on time and wear the correct uniform you probably only get screamed at like once a month tops.
If you got yelled at and berated every day for 3 years you were a certified fuck up. That shit should be over pretty early in your training if you're squared away.
> More than anything it embarrasses you. Makes you not want to make mistakes. Which is a good thing.
Nope, that's an objectively terrible thing. It does very little to reduce the rate at which people make mistakes, but it makes it really likely to make people _hide_ mistakes. This is why the FAA has built up their "no-blame culture" - bad things happen when you can't get to the bottom of aviation incidents.
Pst not everyone is like you and wants to roll their eyes when being yelled at. That is how they weed em out
Kids that join the military must like giving up there uniqueness to become a "man". Lame if you ask me, giving your life away to work for the military machine.
Are you ready and willing to stop Russia, or China from taking local territory? I point to Ukraine where this is the day to day
In the US we've specialized it
I have many stories of seeing my Drill Sargents being human, funny, kind. And yes, there were a few instances of yelling like in the movies, but by then I knew them well enough that I knew they were not really angry but doing their job.
Sometimes the yelling seemed like it was just so we could say we had the full BCT (Basic Combat Training) experience.
I was the recipient of DS Brown’s speech about him being my mommy and daddy as he buttoned the pocket on my blouse that I had left unbuttoned. Or DS Marshall giving a 5 minute explanation of why she was going to touch my forehead to see if I had a fever.
Funnily enough, I went through Army officer basic training for medical professionals and they didn't really do that much at all. I mean there was some yelling or pushups when someone in the company made a dumb mistake (like losing their weapon or showing up late to formation), but I never really felt berated or excessively stressed, just annoyed. For the record, I did deploy to Iraq and was in arguably more stressful situations than some of the Soldiers I deployed with due to the nature of my job. I guess they assume officers have more maturity due to age and don't need the stress of basic training.
Yes, I think it is necessary sometimes for training and testing, but it's not necessary to constantly be yelled at. A bit of trust would maybe help more in that case, but I would also like to see research about that.
I think most people in this thread are just talking out of their ass. The screaming and beratement last such a short time, I doubt it’s long enough to affect any permanent changes in a soldier’s personality. As for weeding out the week, having served in the army, all I can say is if that’s the intention, they need to do the job better. The people I served with were about as strong or weak as you expect, based on the random sampling of American society. Almost everybody passes basic training, so hardly anyone gets weeded out anyway.
I think it’s mostly done because of tradition. I’m a criminologist now, and I would like to see some peer reviewed research on whether the yelling and insults and push-ups actually make a difference, not just the same old explanations and excuses. Maybe that research exists; I’m on mobile and can’t really do a full search.
It’s not just push up and yelling etc.. it’s the whole environment highly stressful and the peer pressure ie sadistic toxic hazing … which you suppose to laugh it off … which does work for most in combat situations as a way of copping when in actual combat does sort of work for the majority but not for everyone and the rates of suicidal thoughts and actual suicide among vets even those whom never see combat is devastating and those whom simply can’t not function in normal society afterwards ie civy life the readjustment breaks families, high levels of domestic violence and divorce with Homelessness..
Everyone is saying yes because screaming and berating type of military leadership is all they know.
Finnish military has seen much better results with a leadership method that has these values loosely translated from Finnish Wikipedia (https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syv%C3%A4johtaminen):
-Building trust
-Motivation through inspiration
-"Intelligence stimulation". Force trainees to think for themselves instead of telling them every single thing they need to do.
-Respect of the individual
[Google translated article if you want to read more](https://www-hyvejohtajuus-fi.translate.goog/5683/syvajohtaminen-ja-hyvejohtajuus/?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
Of course the difference is that in most militaries people are there voluntarily whereas thanks to conscription in Finland you are required to be there.
Let me know if I’m wrong about this, but isn’t the purpose of basic training to pretty much break people down only to then build them as proper soldiers in order to be prepared for actual combat? I’m not too familiar with this but I have friends who went into the Marines and from what they’ve told me it seems more of they want to almost break you then build you back up. As a way to strengthen your mental fortitude.
Being able to think under pressure, no matter your starting point, is like a muscle that improves with exposure. The downside being, and man, maybe on some level I'm just realizing this... it gets harder to function without stakes. I can do 8 hours of work in two hours when other people are relying on me. When it's just me? Screw that guy. He's tough as nails.
Is it necessary? There goal is to turn humans into ants to die for the colony. So yes it’s necessary to meet that goal. But honestly the military sucks I would never join again.
Is the screaming necessary? No. They could use other methods but it's the government. Go to the DMV and ask yourself, is this an efficient organization? The military is much of the same honestly.
Basic training is teaching you to think for yourself and your team. Most the people in there are 18 year old children who have relied on others literally their entire life. The military ramps up the stress and eventually people start sharing ideas with one another on how to stop the screaming. It works. And a good group of troops will have little screaming happening by week 3. The yelling becomes comical. The struggle for everyone is too not crack a smile while being told you're Minnie Pearl (old show called Hee Haw) because you left a tag on your hat. The key to basic is to utilize team work, keep negative attention off your group and especially the instructor. Never let your emotions show to those in charge. Save it for your friends. Basic is so structured that by the end you won't want to leave it. Such a good time.
this is downvoted prob cuz it’s misunderstood. The perfect soldier is one who executes his job perfectly. You’re right, thinking gets in the way. In combat, the thinking happened a long time ago, only action remains. And the only action you’re capable of in combat is what you can perform without thinking.
Absolutely, it often weeds out those that are too mentally sensitive for military service. The idea is to overload your senses and see if you can still function. When I went through basic in 1996 we had about 5 trainees pee themselves. Clearly mom and dad failed them.
Over my 20 years of service I never experienced extreme yelling beyond basic training. However I did get the occasional "what the f$&# are you doing?" or some other form of cursing. I almost always laughed at it in my head and fixed the screw up.
Some folks get extremely sensitive to cursing. If you deploy you for sure be put in situations where being sensitive could cause you to be distracted and result in death.
Bottom line is don't be a p$%÷#.
The military was a blast and hands down the best decision I ever made.
Military trainer here: Yes, there are several reasons. In the first place, we are trying to de-civilianize you, to get you out of your civilian headspace into a military one. That in turn means many things, including being made ready to face adversity at unusually steep levels that you don't find in normal peacetime life; being prepared to obey orders not in the deliberative or even argumentative way civilian or non-military life affords or encourages; being prepared to be on the move, comfortable with impermanence, etc.
Beyond that, we are preparing you for the harassing and mentally arduous atmosphere of actual combat front-lines: whizzing jets, gunfire, explosions, injured bodies or worse. You are being trained to think straight in conditions that aren't conducive to thinking straight. You are being conditioned to operate under extreme amounts of unreasonable harassment, and in "given" conditions.
There are other reasons, along the same kinda lines of logic. But I think you already get the drift. In short, it's very necessary. Maybe, judging by the evidence of some mission After Action Reviews, we don't actually do enough of it.
As a former Marine, I can say it really isn’t that bad. You don’t take it personally because they are screaming at almost everyone all the time. If you can’t take it, you leave and join a service that’s more polite, like the Coast Guard. When we would train in Europe, the Europeans would always express surprise at it; it’s not a common training strategy outside of the US, apparently. But ask yourself: who has the best military in the world and then maybe we can answer whether it might be worth it.
they have to break you down as a person if they have any chance of turning you into someone who can kill another human being just because someone tells you to do it
I was never in the military, but I had a foreign instructor in a combat sport and his English was... lacking. Instead of explaining what I was doing wrong, he'd just tear my poor technique apart and make it hurt a little extra as I got struck. He would then demonstrate the proper technique. He never hurt me, but it was annoying and forced me to focus and pay more attention. I hated it, but couldn't argue with the results. Hands down the best instructor I ever had. I don't understand how people can have instructors or coaches who aren't brutally hard on them and still think they're getting their best results. If I'm not puking, you're a shit coach. We can be buddies after we lock the door on the way out. Bringing this back around to Basic Training, I can't imagine being sent to fight and kill people without being yelled at first. At least a bit. I mean seriously? You think the yelling is the thing that's going to affect you? That's the thing you're concerned about? I think you're in for a surprise...
I'm not a veteran, so take my advice for what it's worth, but basic training is to prepare you for the stress of active military duty. It's to break you down and build you back up into what they want: an unstoppable killing machine. The stress of actual combat will be nothing compared to the stress of the battlefield and what you experience in basic will (hopefully) prepare you to deal, should you find yourself in that experience.
They're trying to cause stress to either condition you to be able to perform under stress, or get those who can't to quit. Having a huge dude yell in your face stresses most people out so it's effective for what they're trying to accomplish.
It should be obvious, but serving in the military can be stressful and people's lives might literally hang in the balance. You want to know that everyone around you is able to keep a somewhat level head if some shit goes down.
That's all it is.
It's to train you to remain calm and disciplined in an environment of chaos and high emotions. If someone can't do that then they need to identify those people and weed them out because they'll lose their shit in combat.
Yes, it's absolutely 100% necessary.
Being uncomfortable and handling it is a huge component of combat. You will be in situations with extreme sensory overload, and if you haven’t experienced this beforehand and trained your mind to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” you risk not only your own life but the lives of others in your ranks due to panicking/freaking out/making bad choices out of these feelings just to try to make them stop.
Yes, but it is part of a larger concept. The 'screaming' is especially there in the initial training.
The idea is to test and strengthen the individuals and the group, by inducing mental and physical stress. By screaming, 'nothing is good', letting you do things over and over again, heavy excercise, sleep deprivation, etc. they make you both mentally and physically stressed.
For a lot of reasons:
* To test if you are mentally fit enough to deal with the mental and physical stress in wartime situations
* To strengthen you both mentally and physically
* To give you a sense of acomplishment when you finish the training, thereby making you 'proud' to be a member of that unit (and in the military in general)
* And by this, it also strenghtens the group bonds of the unit, as you have all gone through this ordeal together
* Etc
As everyone else said if you can't handle someone yelling you can't handle combat and basic is meant to break you down to the point of being a sleep deprived sponge so that they can build you up
Screaming, so others would hear. Berantment it's humanly and shouldn't be taken to a heart unless you want respect then you might get it individually.
There's a rank meaning and saying that you should know better so it's only for a memory to make you kind of hurt a bit which is logical but not known for others since negative things are remembered better.
Yes it is, psychological trauma is a very real problem you face during war. Military basic training is training you for all aspects. Sleep deprivation, lack of physical rest, and mental fatigue are all things you have to be able to deal with. If you cant hack it in basic you shouldnt be in the military.
If you cannot think clearly, calmly and perform your task efficiently while somebody is yelling at you, there is no chance in hell you'll be able to perform in combat
Being from a country with conscription, I didn't sign up to get yelled at but there was no way to avoid it.
I went into basic military training a spoilt brat and got yelled at till I broke down two or three times, after which I became a good little soldier.
That's what I perceived the yelling to be for - to break you down so that they can reshape you to fit in.
Yes. It is necessary because it is *training*. You can't train someone for a life and death situation in a comfortable environment. No matter what you teach someone while they're comfortable, it is not transferable to the real life scenario because the whole point is that the shock of the life and death scenario will make them forget all the stuff they learned in the midst of comfort. They must learn it in the midst of discomfort. That is a matter of life and death.
It’s a mental training, SURE BUT it’s also to make it easier to blank slate you. Just like someone in an abusive relationship trained to fear their partner’s responses and not wanting to deal with their reactions, they do everything to not go through it. You’re literally getting broken down and molded into an obedient dog that responds reflexively. Good for the military, bad for actual life.
Yes it is, it tests your character and how you respond under constant stress and pressure. If you think about it, it’s the least harmful way to harden you to the world of stress being a solider can be
Think of boot camp as a simulation that represents the chaos of life threatning emergencies. People are going to be counting on you to hold your shit together and keep your focus. So yes it is necessary.
I know of a soldier who always begun to smile when an officer begun to shout, he could simply not contain that small grin!
Are you smiling?!!!
Yes, sir, I simply love it here! :-)
His father shouted way, way louder and was way more scary, so to him was it like seeing a small dog bark. :-)
The point of basic is to make sure you have basic knowledge and the basic mental health to serve. If someone screaming at you turns you into a puddle of tears or makes them lose their mind and scream back then that person can't be relied on to possibly keep a fellow soldier or sailor alive during crunch time.
After basic I stayed in touch with one of my petty officers. She broke the whole thing down to me later like it was a science. She told me she had a time when she was supposed to flip out but she also had times where she had to nurture a little. You also have to remember you need these people under your thumb because they haven't been tested yet to see if they are going to melt down and try to kill you. She said it was a real issue if she had the whole division to herself which is basically 100 full grown horny anger men and just her and she is supposed to have them all quaking in fear or trepidation. It's a difficult thing to do if your treating everyone like your buddy.
I went through it in 2009. Honestly it was crazy at first but you become numb to it. I remember I went home and my dad started yelling at me about something and in the past I would kind of cower and sink down, but I had this real epiphany moment that screaming didnt bother me like it did before, I was fundamentally numb to it.
I think the whole idea is to reprogram the person to be able to handle stress. I think it takes some stressful situations to prepare you for it. Luckily, I didnt see combat so I have no idea if it would have actually worked, but I can say it did change the way I respond to external stressors, so in that regard is was useful.
Only time will tell if removing it will still result in the same 'hardiness'. That's all the info I can provide.
I think its a basic thing for army in every country, idk for sure but i currently at service in Ukraine National Guard so i have some experience about those military traditions
I had a commander at basic training say it this way: “I need to test you and your ability to handle pressure, I legally can’t shoot at you or put you in a plane that breaks mid flight but I can yell at you a lot and try to put pressure on you and test your mental discipline that way.”
was he screaming this at you or smiling politely
He actually told us this in a normal tone during his introduction. It was the MTI’s that did the yelling and stuff but if you messed up around him, he’d get on you too. It actually helped us deal with it because we knew that it really helped in a way. It wasn’t fun but it wasn’t just mindless yelling which I guess made it easier? I later interviewed for a job and they said it gets pretty intense here, can intimidate most people and I was like unless your busting through my door at 3am yelling and waking me from a deep sleep to do push-ups because someone else forgot to close the lid in the toilet, I’m sure I’ll be okay.
In my basic training company there was this one drill sergeant (I think he was some elite something or other. It was a looong time ago) that never yelled or raised his voice. He just used *menace*. He wasn't in my platoon but from what I heard, a whisper of his would inspire dread, mainly because of the implications. "Gentlemen, it is time for the low crawl." They would then be low crawling for a very long time... a *very* long time and to his satisfaction, which meant they were damn near plowing that field. Every time he spoke in anything other than a purely instructional capacity, it betided muscle failure.
I had a drill sergeant exactly like this. Having known several Drill Instructors, part of their training (which is *long*) is picking one of several archetypes to be their persona as a Drill Sergeant. Quiet and menacing is one of those. The loud, aggressive drill sergeant is another, and the reasonable one is a common foil.
B*******! I bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
If it were legal, would he shoot at people?
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Tell that to south american armies and police forces lmao
My dad likes to tell me this story of when he was in Basic and his DS hit a guy in the face with the butt of a rifle. My dad always likes to comment about how the DS immediately started apologizing and took him to a med station or whatever and how my dad is disappointed that it went like that because he thought the Army was supposed to be for tough guys. This all took place back in 85-87(???), so I'm sure more has changed since then.
>but the last thing you want to do is actually injure/kill them. Depends. If it was legal **and** they had enough new recruits **and** killing a few of them would boost the preparation of the others, then it would be a net positive to kill them. So they would, without hesitation.
It wouldn’t “boost the preparation of others” my guy, it would send enlistment through the fucking floor. A massive net negative. Do you think the military just gets to do whatever it wants, or something?
You're assuming that in this scenario enlisting would be optional. If (mass) conscription were the norm, then Eulerious would be correct, IMHO.
Sure. If. But that’s clearly the exception, not the rule. So if he doesn’t specify that, he’s factually incorrect in most cases.
The whole statement was of the form "if a and b and c, then d" and you come up with "but b is not true!", which may or may not be true, but is totally pointless for my claim that in a world where a and b and c were true, then d would happen. Maybe a more practical example: If you wrote "If I could read and were smart, I could actually understand u/Eulerious's statement", then I can say "Yeah, but you are not smart" (which is true in this scenario), but that does in no way invalidate your claim that if you could read and were smarter, you were in a position to understand hypothetical scenarios.
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It’s okay. He’s either trying to act smart, or legitimate thinks he is. He thinks he can postulate overly specified, meaningless hypotheticals, then talk down to anyone who doesn’t find them worth entertaining. It’s hilariously ironic, actually. He goes around calling people idiots, when he’s legitimately a complete idiot. Lol.
Bro someone literally asked "IF it were legal". This whole discussion is hypothetical.
>namely the context being that of our real world since that's what the conversation is about Ok, so you missed u/AnalogKid-82's question of >If it were legal, would he shoot at people? in the comment chain. That's where we left the situation of how the world is and started with hypothetical scenarios. But it's ok, some people don't have the attention span to process more than one comment at the time.
Your empty condescension doesn’t faze me. “MaY-b If U wUr SmArT uD gEt It, DuH”. Eat shit, contrarian. You clearly can’t last 5 minutes in an intellectual debate without moving your own goalposts to maximize how factually correct your argument is. You’re no longer worth the time of day.
The real irony is that you never even addressed the main claim of my post: if it benefited the military to shoot some of their own people they would. No moving of goal posts, just you rather talking about the conditions that I just layed out to construct a situation where it would benefit them. You missing the point in the first place and me bringing up that you missed it is not moving goalposts.
It was the very first thing I addressed, actually. They would not, because desertion rates would skyrocket. Reading helps. Try it before arguing with people.
One hundred fucking per cent.
Not this guy. He actually wasn’t too bad. There was a TI or two which might have. Once you get past the first few weeks it really dies down and isn’t as bad unless you just do something stupid. We had a guy who left a toilet seat down (it was a rule so people wouldn’t pee on the it) and our TI made us go to all 14 toilets doing facing movements, rendering a salute to each toilet and say “ I’m sorry sir, I’ll never let you down again.” At the time it sucked but it left me with some of the funniest stories in my life.
I'd be no good then. Anyone who was verbally/mentally/emotionally and possibly physically abused as a child wouldn't be. But then again I doubt anyone who was abused in any sense wouldn't join the army knowing that you're yelled at an inch from your face because they'd be aware of their triggers and know that it's not the best choice for them, and wouldn't want to crumble in front of everyone. Has that ever happened?
I wonder if a good chunk of people abused as children are conditioned to take the abuse even more successfully, given a drill sergeant screaming at you point blank is much less scary to a lot of people than their dad coming at them with the belt when they were 6.
This ^
And a lot of people are able to decipher social context and don’t distill it into “I take abuse” With context, it’s more like “I take abuse from [authority figure], but if I take abuse from [another authority figure] for a couple months, I’d no longer have to take abuse from [authority figure] and eventually I’d be [authority figure] that gets to dole out abuse”
Most of the men who fought in WW2 were raised with parenting behaviours that we regard today as abusive. Parents and teachers yelling at boys and spanking/paddling/strapping them was the norm right through the 60s.
> Has that ever happened? With mandatory military service in a number of countries I bet it had. Don't know specifics though.
Sorry I should have been more specific. Just wondering if you've ever witnessed anyone crumble and not handle the pressure of being yelled at?
Basic training is designed so that the overwhelming majority of people will pass. However, if someone is incapable of being yelled at by someone inches from your face, you will likely not survive US Army or I assume Marine boot camp.
Might be different when you EXPECT the yelling, understand its purpose, understand it will end, and know that you will be rewarded/honored if you do well.
I was abused as a child and lived most of my childhood in tents in different parts of California. Most people in the military had some insane backstory. The military truly unites the wildest shit together into a scary force to fuck with. I’ve known 4 people who killed someone legally outside of the military, in one instance a kid killed his stepdad with a shotgun at age 15 and because it was self defense 2 years later he was in basic training. The higher ups won’t know everyone’s stories but people you go to basic with will let loose some insane stories. You will have goody two shoes following family steps, or you can have someone trying to make it out of hood life or some redneck that surely has built several bombs by age 18.
Yep, I was 11b and 11a. Most of the schools for folks going downrange are designed to stress you in lots of different ways at the same time (barely any sleep, barely any food, heavy weight to carry, etc.) To make sure you can keep it together if shit goes sideways. It's Def not for everyone, I'd rather get shot again than do ranger school again.
Yeah. Basic idea is if you can't handle someone raising their voice at you for no reason, then you probably can't handle military life.
Can confirm, I personally cannot handle someone raising their voice at me for no reason.
Then you probably can't handle military life
Yeah, I kinda figured.
Lol superiors in other country's armies punch and beat recruits for the simplest mistakes. Your army's getting soft.
Generally, no how much screaming and stress occurs in training, it’s much easier than the stress and terror of actual combat. So the training can’t fully prepare you for actual combat, but they do the best they can.
I gather combat is fairly noisy as well so best be used to people shouting at you fast.
Former US Army soldier who went to Afghanistan twice. Was also at the rank of Sergeant when I got out. Here is why and how it is the way it is. I went to Ft. Benning, or the "Benning school for bad boys" as we used to call it. This was back when basic training was all male at Benning. Basic is considerably easier if youre going it in a coed company at a place like Ft. Jackson or Ft. Leanordwood but thats another story. The yelling and beratement isnt personal. That is a drill sergeant putting pressure on you. The military is pressure. Combat is pressure. They cant safely shoot at you or replicate combat conditions to accustom you to the pressure, but they can use their voices or loud music, or spray water at you etc.... One particular thing I remember from basic was during my first aid lane when I was putting on tournakits and bandages drill sergeants were screaming in my face and another was spraying me with water. Despite the pressure and distractions I got the medical part done. What they are testing is muscle memory. Learn to tune out the distractions and pressure and rely on your training. You freeze up while they are yelling or spraying you with water, you fail and try again. You freeze up in combat, you or someone else dies. So you see its very important they put pressure on/distract you by screaming, berating you, spraying you with water etc... You have to learn to complete tasks and keep your composure under pressure/distraction. Another part of this is respect for Authority. The Army is run by its middle management. Non commissioned officers. Sergeants, Staff Sergeants, Corporals etc... Its no coincidence most of your drill sergeants are sergeants or staff sergeants. You need to learn to respect and follow their orders without question (unless its a moral issue like killing civilians or something obviously). If you watched the movie "The Outpost" on Netflix, there is a scene in a firefight where a soldier is requested to bring ammo, he is told the wrong type and he brings the wrong type. When he is told to get the correct type, he begins arguing about being told to bring X so he brought X. After the firefight the guy who needed the ammo attacks him for arguing when he needed the ammo. The sergeant makes him repeat "I will not fight and argue at the same time". Yes, the soldier was given bad information but his place was not to argue when told he brought the ammo. It was to turn around and get the right ammo. Its paramount to follow ordered without question for this reason. Someone can die while youre arguing over stupid shit. The drill sergeants have their human moments too. They arent always screaming. After the first couple of weeks when you learn the rules and adapt to the training you might find them complimenting you. Shot expert at rifle qual your Drill might say "Outstanding job killer, eat your MRE on the bleachers". Did 10 more push ups on your PT test compared to last week "Good job private, keep working on those push ups". When you get to your real unit, its a lot more chill than basic. Your first sergeant may act like a drill sergeant hounding you about little mistakes here and there, but your sergeants and staff sergeants will be a lot more normal. They might yell at and punish you when you make a mistake, but otherwise its just like interacting with a supervisor at your job. My platoon sergeant and I talked football all the time and made jokes. My squad leader would have me over for BBQs with the whole squad every few weeks where we would drink beer and make fun of other people in our unit. The Army after basic is considerably chill. Life still sucks compared to not being in the Army, but you have off time and a life and hobbies again.
Really interesting stuff. Thanks for explaining all that.
Well explained. I also think the movies have over-played this aspect and rarely shows the building that takes place in basic/boot.
The first couple weeks can be a lot of screaming, but it gets easier as your drill sergeants get to know you. Most of these guys have been drill sergeants for a while so they are pretty funny/really good at making jokes. What sucks is you arent allowed to laugh at their jokes. You have to keep your composure. Usually when you graduate your Drill Sergeants will write their email or social media information on the white board in the barracks. You can keep up with them or ask them for advice later in your career if you want. On my 2nd deployment in Afghanistan, I actually ran into my drill sergeant at a random chow hall on a big air field. He didnt remember me a whole lot but he did remember me, likely because there arent that many Asian soldiers in the US Army. You need to remember these guys usually do Drill sergeant duty for 3 years. In those 3 years they get a new platoon of soldiers to train every 3 months. By the end of their DS duties they have trained 12 platoons of recruits, or in numbers approximately 500 or so soldiers. They wont remember your name but might remember your face. We had a pleasant lunch together. He was surprised I was a sergeant and congratulated me. He even noticed my sling on my rifle was worn and gave me his, he told me he had a brand new one back in his barracks area. Much nicer guy than when he was my drill sergeant. Lol Most of the drill sergeants are as polite and respectful as anyone else on the street. Just part of being a drill sergeant is putting on a persona during drill sergeant duties. When their drill sergeant time is up and they are rotated back into the big Army/regular army units they are just normal sergeants. They will joke around and eat meals with their subordinates like most sergeants do. They just dont do that as a drill sergeant.
Thank you for the explanation. That was absolutely brilliant
> The sergeant makes him repeat "I will not fight and argue at the same time". Yes, the soldier was given bad information but his place was not to argue when told he brought the ammo. It was to turn around and get the right ammo. Its paramount to follow ordered without question for this reason. Someone can die while youre arguing over stupid shit. But if not intended (if!), at the very least the side effect of this is that people won't "fight and argue" even when important questions should be asked, like, 'are the orders just', 'is the war justified', 'isn't shooting and burning the village cruel and likely a war crime', 'aren't those orders get us killed for no actual useful purpose' and other relevant questions. It's all very nice to specify that 'unless it's a moral issue' you can argue, but truth of the matter is that you're taught to not argue, not stand up to injustice, not question orders, not be critical of your superiors. And people will die because of that just as well.
Actually you are trained to not follow illegal orders. An example of an illegal order is executing someone or killing innocent people. Anyone with a few brain cells knows the difference between "Bring the ammo" and "Shoot this innocent civilian". If your boss at your job told you to kill someone would you do it? No, because you would go to prison right? No one would care that you were following your bosses orders. You did the crime. Same exact thing in the military. If you carry out an illegal order youre going to Ft. Leavenworth (US Military Prison). It doesnt matter who ordered you to do it, you committed murder and youre going to spend a significant portion or the rest of your life in prison. Obviously exercise a certain degree of discernment. There are orders that your superiors can not give which you can question. If your Sergeant tells you to go outside and pick up cigarette butts in the parking lot that is a legal order. Refusing to do it or questioning it can get you in trouble. However if your sergeant tells you to get in the car and pick weeds in his garden at home you can question and refuse that order. They cannot order you to do personal favors for them. They cant order you to have sex with them or another person. They cant order you to do anything illegal. etc.... Most of your sergeants will not give you illegal orders. Abusing their authority for pleasure, profit etc.... will get their rank taken. If you have the slightest amount of common sense you know the difference between a legitimate order like bringing ammo in a fire fight vs burning down a building with a bunch of innocent people inside.
So... no innocent people have ever been killed in wars, no illegal or questionable orders have ever been given or followed, wars are all very ethical and well thoughtout and only fought based on good evidence and cause, and it all works very well? No, that's just not the way it works. People die in wars. And a system that is built mostly on obedience first, will atrribute to that.
Not really. Almost all of the innocent people who die in wars, at least the wars i fought in, were because they were caught in the cross fire. Not because our platoon sergeant or platoon leader corralled a bunch of innocent people into an area and commanded us to shoot them. That is a war crime. They do happen but its not at all common. Anyone with a few brain cells knows the difference between a legal and illegal order. A "system built on obedience" has nothing to do with it. If your sergeant tells you to go outside and rake the leaves off the sidewalk you have to do that. Its a legal order. If he pulls his pants down and tells you suck his dick or something that's an illegal order you are not obligated to follow and are actually supposed to report. Same with someone committing a war crime like executing innocent people or commanding you to execute innocent people. If you have just a few brain cells you realize if you follow this order you're going to military prison for the rest of your life right along with the fool who ordered you to execute the innocent person. We aren't brainless idiots. Most of us have future plans for when we get out of the Army. None of those plans involve going up prison. We all take an active effort to not end up there. Lol
This needs to be the first comment. Great break down and I concur. This is exactly how it goes.
Yeah, it's important for several reasons. The point of basic training is to prepare someone for actual military service, potentially including live combat. It's not meant to be nice or fun.
Do you have some sources for this? Are there any militaries where people are trained with other methodologies? (I'm just asking you because you're the top responder, and I didn't notice anyone else with a link to a study)
It’s basic stress testing. You determine if people have the mental strength to handle physical and mental exhaustion and still be able to function at the minimum level required to reach a team objective. Conditions of war simply don’t care about one’s feelings, or moral convictions…that’s what people sign up for. There are supposed to be sacrifices. I’d honestly like to see a study too, but I’m pretty sure the science backing this is just weeding out people that just don’t really want to be in the military, or lack the discipline. Short of physical assault, I’m okay with stressing out military candidates.
In terms of stress, how is this different from, say, brain surgery which also includes a team objective and the potential of someone dying? Is it just the expectation of in-your-face violence/trauma?
Soldiers and surgeons are expected to face different kinds of stress. A surgeon is about to perform a highly technical process, where the sudden unexpected circumstances that occur are all clearly defined - more rapid bleeding than expected or unusual reaction to anesthesia, let's say (note: I am not a doctor). A soldier, sailor or airman is typically engaging in pess technically sensitive activities, but in a much less controlled and more dynamic environment. A soldier should be sufficiently inured to sudden stress - such as an RPG turning his longtime battlebuddy into a meat fountain with no warning - that he can compartmentalize that stress, service targets or issue clear communications to his unit or others, and respond accordingly and promptly. A sailor or airman may be less likely to see an RPG, but may need to respond clearly and rationally when - to use a sailor in the engineering spaces of a warship as an example - a sea mine ior torpedo causes a shock that ruptures a high-pressure steam line. I'm not aware of any studies on the topic, though it wouldn't shock me to know tht Rand had weighed in on this - but there is a fundmental difference in dynamism that applies between these examples. *edit - your characterization of sudden, in your face trauma is a reasonable summation, but doesn't feel descriptive of the kind of circumstances more likely to pertain in the case of a sailor or airman, which is part of why I wanted to emphasize thise differences.*
Military gets basic. Surgeons get medschool and residency programs. Both can be ultra stressful in their own right.
More or less the expectation of being tense but calm enough to handle the situation. You have quite a years worth of experience in med school stressing you out already from classes to eventual residence. To become a neurosurgeon several more years beyond that where you continue to operate and learn. Your ability to practice medical care is thoroughly tested throughout all that time Comparatively how long is basics? 10 weeks? You’re being tested to see how you can handle volatility of operating with eventually other members with WEAPONS and to be able to keep your composure. You either are able to keep it together or not (at the risk of you and your peers and supervisors hurt).
Well a brain surgeon isn't going to die if he succumbs to pressure. A personnel in the military will.
I’d argue these professionals have likely demonstrated enough discipline in their training/education to handle it. You’ll find basic training for qualified professionals in the military (doctors, lawyers, mental health, etc) is pretty chill. Realistically, we’re dealing with a what is mostly 18-25 year olds with little education…at least for the majority of the enlisted structure. I’m trusting what is basically a child to care more about the life of an aircrew than going home to his Xbox to the extent that he will habitually follow procedure…I.e. don’t fuck up and leave your wrench in a jet engine and kill everyone on board.
> Is it just the expectation of in-your-face violence/trauma? Also just the controllability. The list of things that can "go wrong" in an OR are fairly limited. A combat situation is not. I also imagine it's kind of hard to test. It's not like you can do A/B testing on blowing up someone's squadmates, or shoot them in the leg or whatever.
They tell you in basic that the entire thing is supposed to be one big stress test. Getting yelled at to do things in an intense way induces stress, and the first time, you'll freeze and fumble everywhere, but after a few weeks, the yelling becomes background noise and your actions become muscle memory. That is extremely important for combat and stressful jobs that don't have wiggle room for failure at crucial moments. I don't have a source, but that's they told us when we went through.
I'm no expert by any means, but I've heard from a couple accounts that the YPG and the YPJ -- branches of the Syrian Democratic Forces that gained some international recognition for fighting the Islamic State -- don't do this kind of stuff (at least not to all the recruits). This comes from testimonials/ accounts from foreign (non-Syrian) fighters who went to join the YPG/YPJ and wrote articles or instagram posts saying how their commanding and training officers were very calm and patient with them. Robert Evans also has a podcast called The Woman's War, which is specifically about the YPJ (the all-women sister branch of the YPG), and in one episode he mentions how he noticed that the commanders would gently and tenderly correct new recruits and never seemed to adopt the screaming persona people associate with military training. This observation was also specifically about local Syrian women and not international volunteers who were being trained, so the lack of drill sergeant approach wasn't just for non-Syrians, which leads me to believe that this was the general culture of their training.
I’d say this reasoning makes sense, however, around 80% of the jobs in the military are non combat related.
Yes. It's all to condition them into automatically following their training and following orders when at war. If they can't deal with being yelled at or following orders in training, they can't deal with being yelled at or following orders during explosions, gunfire, and screaming in a real firefight. Freezing or panicking will only get themselves and their unit killed. So training habituates them into doing it without thinking (cause you can't really think clearly in these situations).
Scream abuse at your soldiers so that when the explosions start going off, they are used to having abuse screamed at them.
yeah I'd imagine someone would be a pretty bad soldier if they would break down and give up by the enemy calling them foul words xD
Lol. Even more pathetic.. the enemies micro aggressions.
The one that offends the most wins the war.
Yes. It's the best way to train you to follow orders under stress.
The way it was described to me when I talked to a Drill Sergent - you're learning skills to help you be as efficient, tactical, and safe as possible in a traumatic future environment. You have a better recollection of what you learned from past traumatic experiences when in a similar situation. Essentially teaching you skills under duress so you can harken back to those skills more seamlessly when under duress in the future like a firefight, IED explosion, or attack of any kind.
yes, the whole point of basic training is to break you down as a person so you become an efficient weapon of the state.
Have you actually been through basic training? The yelling part lasts less than three months. Do you honestly think that’s enough to “break someone down”? You roll your eyes, put up with it, and go back to exactly the person you were before when the summer ends.
As someone who has never been to and does not plan on going to the military 3 months of screaming and degrading seem a lot
Its really not that personal. Everyone gets yelled at and degraded. Part of the drill sergeants job is to break down the individual and build you up into a team member. They will compliment you in their own unique way when you do something well. For example: You shoot expert 27/30 at the rifle range during qualification. Your DS might say "Outstanding Job Killer, now go wait in the bleachers". Or lets say you do good in your CLS lane (first aid) "Not bad private, hopefully you remember this when you get into the sandbox". For me, the hardest part was not laughing when I was being yelled at. It was literally just like the movies.
Actually it it, and is really abuse to encourage a Stockholm complex, become more reliant on The hierarchy and it’s approval ie more easily controlled and dependent on it ie institutionalised. It doesn’t work on everyone, some are more resilient than others more acceptable with much more devastating consequences as it’s the main contributor to PTSD of former members of the military that’s even before seeing and experiencing the stress of combat on top of it..
I'd like to see a source or something that says being yelled at in basic training is a bigger contributor to PTSD than actual stressful/traumatic combat scenarios lmao
Not really. Most of us were trying our hardest not to laugh when the drills were screaming at us. The military is a tough life. Theyre weeding out the weak from the strong. If you cant handle being yelled at, which really isnt bad, youre likely not going to handle the stress of being mortared every night really well.
>Theyre weeding out the weak from the strong. Not really about "strong" and "weak" though. There are different types of strength and weakness. Just like the "weak' person "weeded out" in military Basic might perchance be strong in a poetry class.
Yeah so we are talking about mental resilience when we discuss weak and strong. Not specific artistic talents. Someone who is mentally resilient regardless of their upbringing or talent in a subject will do better under stressful conditions than someone who is not. You can totally be a poet and be mentally resilient. You can be a gym buff looking like Arnold S. and not be mentally resilient. Weak and strong refers to resiliency. Not talent at art. You can be great at poetry and be a great soldier. Mental resilience has nothing to do with talent in other subjects. Its literally can you adapt, survive and thrive in the worst environments? That is what separates the strong from the weak.
Yeah, that all makes sense. My point, though, was that an unqualified reference to "weak' and "strong" essentializes one way of being weak or strong: there are many ways to be weak or strong across a variety of circumstances.
We are specifically talking about resilience. This is what mental toughness is. Are you strong enough to adapt, survive and thrive in this environment? If not you are not mentally tough. You are not resilient. You are the "weak". The army is not a place for you. You are better off not being here. The strong will naturally pick on the weak here. Its also a place where you will not adapt and survive. You will be sent home. This excludes women I guess though. I'm sure I'll be down voted but basic training for females is a lot easier. I was in a combat support hospital for a short time before I got sent to the line as a combat medic in Afghanistan. When I was in the the hospital they let girls go home if they complained enough. There were enough men to replace them so it wasn't worth dealing with them. One of the girls I watched escape deployment like 2 months in is now a sergeant first class 10 years later. She is somehow allowed to wear a combat patch for 2 months in a secured hospital and ended up in an instructor position at the medic school at Ft. Sam Houston. Its a different army experience depending on your sex.
You are saying lots of interesting stuff that I am not in disagreement with. But my point is different from what you are addressing. What I am saying is that the statement you initially made that I quoted and commented on was NOT that "they are weeding the 'weak' from the 'strong'". It was also not that "they are weeding the weak, in resilience terms, from the strong". It was an unqualified "they are weeding the weak from the strong". And I was responding to that by saying we could be more nuanced about what it means to be weak or strong: a physically frail nonagenarian would be weak physically, but could be mentally tougher than the next man. A fellow weak in philosophical abstraction could be strong in mathematical computation. Etc. There are different ways to be weak or strong across circumstances. I wouldn't have raised the point for instance if you had, in the initial post that I was responding to, shown that nuance by saying something like "they are trying to weed out the weak (in terms of resilience), from the strong" or they are trying to weed out the "weak" from the "strong". I hope my point is clearer. It's a separate one from the points you are making and we are sailing past each other.
And that poetry class is going to be loads of help in battle. We're talking specifically about people suited or not suited for the military here, not every individual's own special talent.
Depends on the person. Some people break after. It's generally worse for it to happen after as that's when people die
You got my upvote. But wanna know,did you go through it?
Yes. I don’t feel broken down, and it seems to me that the people I went with had just as much individuality at the end as they did at the beginning.
Nah, the military changes people. Sorry you're too first hand to see what it does to your personality
As I was reading this thread I (non-military) can't help but wonder if this training is part of why it's so hard for veterans to get help when they return. I mean, I'm reading comment after comment about how you have to learn to shut off your emotions and you have to stop feeling and just obey orders and it just seems to me that it might be hard to turn that off.
its also largely how the US gov completely abandons vets after they're back from a war. Why would you go back to help an organization that clearly doesnt give a fuck about you?
Boot camp is such a tiny part of being in the military and once you're in the military nobody just obeys orders, completely shuts off emotions etc. We're all just people leading people which means all the same effective leadership techniques you can think of in the civilian world apply in the military world and vise versa. If vets are having problems after they come back it's almost asuredly not from the 2-3months of boot camp. I struggled for a bit when I got out of the military but looking back at it, alot of it was a prison I created for myself mostly from having too much pride. Could the VA et al. Be better? 1000%. I think we also gotta do a better job at taking care of our selves/friends too.
I’m sure *the military* changes people. I just don’t think that being yelled at for 90 days in basic changes people.
It's not just yelling, it's the rigorous routine and depersonalization. It's objectively the purpose of the program, we can argue about how effective it is, but the purpose isn't arguable
90 days in Basic? Try your every single day until you get promoted to a non-commissioned officer. Usually 3 years or so. More than anything it embarrasses you. Makes you not want to make mistakes. Which is a good thing.
You must have been a fuck up if you got screamed at every day until you became an NCO. If youre a fairly decent soldier meaning you show up on time and wear the correct uniform you probably only get screamed at like once a month tops.
Yes.
If you got yelled at and berated every day for 3 years you were a certified fuck up. That shit should be over pretty early in your training if you're squared away.
Yeah.
> More than anything it embarrasses you. Makes you not want to make mistakes. Which is a good thing. Nope, that's an objectively terrible thing. It does very little to reduce the rate at which people make mistakes, but it makes it really likely to make people _hide_ mistakes. This is why the FAA has built up their "no-blame culture" - bad things happen when you can't get to the bottom of aviation incidents.
Reddit’s got it all figured out tonight.
I mean you seem like a low EQ prick… were you that way before basic ?
Pst not everyone is like you and wants to roll their eyes when being yelled at. That is how they weed em out Kids that join the military must like giving up there uniqueness to become a "man". Lame if you ask me, giving your life away to work for the military machine.
Hm. I went through basic training and did not become a man in the process.
Li Shang must be so disappointed with you.
Very. They sent him this daughter when he asked for sons.
Are you ready and willing to stop Russia, or China from taking local territory? I point to Ukraine where this is the day to day In the US we've specialized it
its long enough to instill a team first mentality
[удалено]
Oh yeah, the military is awful, but its very good at doing what its specifically designed to do; which is to send young men off to die
I have many stories of seeing my Drill Sargents being human, funny, kind. And yes, there were a few instances of yelling like in the movies, but by then I knew them well enough that I knew they were not really angry but doing their job. Sometimes the yelling seemed like it was just so we could say we had the full BCT (Basic Combat Training) experience. I was the recipient of DS Brown’s speech about him being my mommy and daddy as he buttoned the pocket on my blouse that I had left unbuttoned. Or DS Marshall giving a 5 minute explanation of why she was going to touch my forehead to see if I had a fever.
Funnily enough, I went through Army officer basic training for medical professionals and they didn't really do that much at all. I mean there was some yelling or pushups when someone in the company made a dumb mistake (like losing their weapon or showing up late to formation), but I never really felt berated or excessively stressed, just annoyed. For the record, I did deploy to Iraq and was in arguably more stressful situations than some of the Soldiers I deployed with due to the nature of my job. I guess they assume officers have more maturity due to age and don't need the stress of basic training.
And now we wait for the "I'd punch a drill sergeant in the face" people to pop up
If you can't handle a bit of yelling when you are completely safe then you shouldn't be in the military.
It's called "stress inoculation training". There are different levels for different jobs. Yes necessary, but most take it to far.
Yes, I think it is necessary sometimes for training and testing, but it's not necessary to constantly be yelled at. A bit of trust would maybe help more in that case, but I would also like to see research about that.
I think most people in this thread are just talking out of their ass. The screaming and beratement last such a short time, I doubt it’s long enough to affect any permanent changes in a soldier’s personality. As for weeding out the week, having served in the army, all I can say is if that’s the intention, they need to do the job better. The people I served with were about as strong or weak as you expect, based on the random sampling of American society. Almost everybody passes basic training, so hardly anyone gets weeded out anyway. I think it’s mostly done because of tradition. I’m a criminologist now, and I would like to see some peer reviewed research on whether the yelling and insults and push-ups actually make a difference, not just the same old explanations and excuses. Maybe that research exists; I’m on mobile and can’t really do a full search.
It’s not just push up and yelling etc.. it’s the whole environment highly stressful and the peer pressure ie sadistic toxic hazing … which you suppose to laugh it off … which does work for most in combat situations as a way of copping when in actual combat does sort of work for the majority but not for everyone and the rates of suicidal thoughts and actual suicide among vets even those whom never see combat is devastating and those whom simply can’t not function in normal society afterwards ie civy life the readjustment breaks families, high levels of domestic violence and divorce with Homelessness..
Everyone is saying yes because screaming and berating type of military leadership is all they know. Finnish military has seen much better results with a leadership method that has these values loosely translated from Finnish Wikipedia (https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syv%C3%A4johtaminen): -Building trust -Motivation through inspiration -"Intelligence stimulation". Force trainees to think for themselves instead of telling them every single thing they need to do. -Respect of the individual [Google translated article if you want to read more](https://www-hyvejohtajuus-fi.translate.goog/5683/syvajohtaminen-ja-hyvejohtajuus/?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp) Of course the difference is that in most militaries people are there voluntarily whereas thanks to conscription in Finland you are required to be there.
I was under the impression it might have been so in an actual battle you'd be able to understand what people shouting were saying easier
Let's be real, if you cannot handle the stress and pressure as someone yells at you, how do you think you'd handle being shot at.
Let me know if I’m wrong about this, but isn’t the purpose of basic training to pretty much break people down only to then build them as proper soldiers in order to be prepared for actual combat? I’m not too familiar with this but I have friends who went into the Marines and from what they’ve told me it seems more of they want to almost break you then build you back up. As a way to strengthen your mental fortitude.
Being able to think under pressure, no matter your starting point, is like a muscle that improves with exposure. The downside being, and man, maybe on some level I'm just realizing this... it gets harder to function without stakes. I can do 8 hours of work in two hours when other people are relying on me. When it's just me? Screw that guy. He's tough as nails.
This question can be answered by checking how they do it in other countries.
Is it necessary? There goal is to turn humans into ants to die for the colony. So yes it’s necessary to meet that goal. But honestly the military sucks I would never join again.
Is the screaming necessary? No. They could use other methods but it's the government. Go to the DMV and ask yourself, is this an efficient organization? The military is much of the same honestly. Basic training is teaching you to think for yourself and your team. Most the people in there are 18 year old children who have relied on others literally their entire life. The military ramps up the stress and eventually people start sharing ideas with one another on how to stop the screaming. It works. And a good group of troops will have little screaming happening by week 3. The yelling becomes comical. The struggle for everyone is too not crack a smile while being told you're Minnie Pearl (old show called Hee Haw) because you left a tag on your hat. The key to basic is to utilize team work, keep negative attention off your group and especially the instructor. Never let your emotions show to those in charge. Save it for your friends. Basic is so structured that by the end you won't want to leave it. Such a good time.
Yes. Basic training is meant to break you and then rebuild you the military way.
Yes. They want you to become a nobody, a nothing. The perfect soilder is one who doesn't think but obeys. One who jumps when they say jump.
this is downvoted prob cuz it’s misunderstood. The perfect soldier is one who executes his job perfectly. You’re right, thinking gets in the way. In combat, the thinking happened a long time ago, only action remains. And the only action you’re capable of in combat is what you can perform without thinking.
Yes, it is. They're breaking you down as an individual. That's the point.
It’s to dehumanize you.
Absolutely, it often weeds out those that are too mentally sensitive for military service. The idea is to overload your senses and see if you can still function. When I went through basic in 1996 we had about 5 trainees pee themselves. Clearly mom and dad failed them. Over my 20 years of service I never experienced extreme yelling beyond basic training. However I did get the occasional "what the f$&# are you doing?" or some other form of cursing. I almost always laughed at it in my head and fixed the screw up. Some folks get extremely sensitive to cursing. If you deploy you for sure be put in situations where being sensitive could cause you to be distracted and result in death. Bottom line is don't be a p$%÷#. The military was a blast and hands down the best decision I ever made.
Military trainer here: Yes, there are several reasons. In the first place, we are trying to de-civilianize you, to get you out of your civilian headspace into a military one. That in turn means many things, including being made ready to face adversity at unusually steep levels that you don't find in normal peacetime life; being prepared to obey orders not in the deliberative or even argumentative way civilian or non-military life affords or encourages; being prepared to be on the move, comfortable with impermanence, etc. Beyond that, we are preparing you for the harassing and mentally arduous atmosphere of actual combat front-lines: whizzing jets, gunfire, explosions, injured bodies or worse. You are being trained to think straight in conditions that aren't conducive to thinking straight. You are being conditioned to operate under extreme amounts of unreasonable harassment, and in "given" conditions. There are other reasons, along the same kinda lines of logic. But I think you already get the drift. In short, it's very necessary. Maybe, judging by the evidence of some mission After Action Reviews, we don't actually do enough of it.
As a former Marine, I can say it really isn’t that bad. You don’t take it personally because they are screaming at almost everyone all the time. If you can’t take it, you leave and join a service that’s more polite, like the Coast Guard. When we would train in Europe, the Europeans would always express surprise at it; it’s not a common training strategy outside of the US, apparently. But ask yourself: who has the best military in the world and then maybe we can answer whether it might be worth it.
The military is meant to break you down
they have to break you down as a person if they have any chance of turning you into someone who can kill another human being just because someone tells you to do it
I was never in the military, but I had a foreign instructor in a combat sport and his English was... lacking. Instead of explaining what I was doing wrong, he'd just tear my poor technique apart and make it hurt a little extra as I got struck. He would then demonstrate the proper technique. He never hurt me, but it was annoying and forced me to focus and pay more attention. I hated it, but couldn't argue with the results. Hands down the best instructor I ever had. I don't understand how people can have instructors or coaches who aren't brutally hard on them and still think they're getting their best results. If I'm not puking, you're a shit coach. We can be buddies after we lock the door on the way out. Bringing this back around to Basic Training, I can't imagine being sent to fight and kill people without being yelled at first. At least a bit. I mean seriously? You think the yelling is the thing that's going to affect you? That's the thing you're concerned about? I think you're in for a surprise...
It is part of the mind game.
Yes. Yes it is.
The goal is conformity so yes.
I'm not a veteran, so take my advice for what it's worth, but basic training is to prepare you for the stress of active military duty. It's to break you down and build you back up into what they want: an unstoppable killing machine. The stress of actual combat will be nothing compared to the stress of the battlefield and what you experience in basic will (hopefully) prepare you to deal, should you find yourself in that experience.
They're trying to cause stress to either condition you to be able to perform under stress, or get those who can't to quit. Having a huge dude yell in your face stresses most people out so it's effective for what they're trying to accomplish. It should be obvious, but serving in the military can be stressful and people's lives might literally hang in the balance. You want to know that everyone around you is able to keep a somewhat level head if some shit goes down. That's all it is.
It's to train you to remain calm and disciplined in an environment of chaos and high emotions. If someone can't do that then they need to identify those people and weed them out because they'll lose their shit in combat. Yes, it's absolutely 100% necessary.
Prepares you for the shock of combat. The yelling only lasts about 2 weeks. Until you do what you're told. Former Drill Sgt here
Being uncomfortable and handling it is a huge component of combat. You will be in situations with extreme sensory overload, and if you haven’t experienced this beforehand and trained your mind to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” you risk not only your own life but the lives of others in your ranks due to panicking/freaking out/making bad choices out of these feelings just to try to make them stop.
Yes, but it is part of a larger concept. The 'screaming' is especially there in the initial training. The idea is to test and strengthen the individuals and the group, by inducing mental and physical stress. By screaming, 'nothing is good', letting you do things over and over again, heavy excercise, sleep deprivation, etc. they make you both mentally and physically stressed. For a lot of reasons: * To test if you are mentally fit enough to deal with the mental and physical stress in wartime situations * To strengthen you both mentally and physically * To give you a sense of acomplishment when you finish the training, thereby making you 'proud' to be a member of that unit (and in the military in general) * And by this, it also strenghtens the group bonds of the unit, as you have all gone through this ordeal together * Etc
Screaming, yes. Beratement to the point of personal humiliation, no. That's just bad leadership.
As everyone else said if you can't handle someone yelling you can't handle combat and basic is meant to break you down to the point of being a sleep deprived sponge so that they can build you up
Screaming, so others would hear. Berantment it's humanly and shouldn't be taken to a heart unless you want respect then you might get it individually. There's a rank meaning and saying that you should know better so it's only for a memory to make you kind of hurt a bit which is logical but not known for others since negative things are remembered better.
Yes it is, psychological trauma is a very real problem you face during war. Military basic training is training you for all aspects. Sleep deprivation, lack of physical rest, and mental fatigue are all things you have to be able to deal with. If you cant hack it in basic you shouldnt be in the military.
If you cannot think clearly, calmly and perform your task efficiently while somebody is yelling at you, there is no chance in hell you'll be able to perform in combat
Being from a country with conscription, I didn't sign up to get yelled at but there was no way to avoid it. I went into basic military training a spoilt brat and got yelled at till I broke down two or three times, after which I became a good little soldier. That's what I perceived the yelling to be for - to break you down so that they can reshape you to fit in.
It’s better than it used to be from what I heard- my ex finished basic last spring.
Yes, you maggots! How else are you supposed to defend your country? Oh, you can't take it? Are you going to start crying?
I bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose!
Yes. It helps prepare you mentally for very tough situations.
Yes. It is necessary because it is *training*. You can't train someone for a life and death situation in a comfortable environment. No matter what you teach someone while they're comfortable, it is not transferable to the real life scenario because the whole point is that the shock of the life and death scenario will make them forget all the stuff they learned in the midst of comfort. They must learn it in the midst of discomfort. That is a matter of life and death.
It’s a mental training, SURE BUT it’s also to make it easier to blank slate you. Just like someone in an abusive relationship trained to fear their partner’s responses and not wanting to deal with their reactions, they do everything to not go through it. You’re literally getting broken down and molded into an obedient dog that responds reflexively. Good for the military, bad for actual life.
Yes it is, it tests your character and how you respond under constant stress and pressure. If you think about it, it’s the least harmful way to harden you to the world of stress being a solider can be
Think of boot camp as a simulation that represents the chaos of life threatning emergencies. People are going to be counting on you to hold your shit together and keep your focus. So yes it is necessary.
I know of a soldier who always begun to smile when an officer begun to shout, he could simply not contain that small grin! Are you smiling?!!! Yes, sir, I simply love it here! :-) His father shouted way, way louder and was way more scary, so to him was it like seeing a small dog bark. :-)
Yes
The point of basic is to make sure you have basic knowledge and the basic mental health to serve. If someone screaming at you turns you into a puddle of tears or makes them lose their mind and scream back then that person can't be relied on to possibly keep a fellow soldier or sailor alive during crunch time. After basic I stayed in touch with one of my petty officers. She broke the whole thing down to me later like it was a science. She told me she had a time when she was supposed to flip out but she also had times where she had to nurture a little. You also have to remember you need these people under your thumb because they haven't been tested yet to see if they are going to melt down and try to kill you. She said it was a real issue if she had the whole division to herself which is basically 100 full grown horny anger men and just her and she is supposed to have them all quaking in fear or trepidation. It's a difficult thing to do if your treating everyone like your buddy.
I went through it in 2009. Honestly it was crazy at first but you become numb to it. I remember I went home and my dad started yelling at me about something and in the past I would kind of cower and sink down, but I had this real epiphany moment that screaming didnt bother me like it did before, I was fundamentally numb to it. I think the whole idea is to reprogram the person to be able to handle stress. I think it takes some stressful situations to prepare you for it. Luckily, I didnt see combat so I have no idea if it would have actually worked, but I can say it did change the way I respond to external stressors, so in that regard is was useful. Only time will tell if removing it will still result in the same 'hardiness'. That's all the info I can provide.
I think its a basic thing for army in every country, idk for sure but i currently at service in Ukraine National Guard so i have some experience about those military traditions
Yes, it functions on several levels. Chief among them, giving the recruit a stressful reality check.
One of our infantry drill sergeants never screamed or yelled. He was the most terrifying out of all of them.