If you spend a week in our message forum, or read my email for a few days, you would discover that military basic training has gone "soft." In fact (insert name of person posting the message or sending the email), went through the very last "hard" basic training in (insert year they went through basic). It doesn't matter when. If they went through basic in 1950, that was the last period of hard basic training. If they went through in 1975, that was the last hard class. If they graduated in 1999, that was right before basic began to get "wimpy."
A recent spate of letters to the Army Times from Soldiers lamenting the weakening of basic training, has commanders and drill sergeants at Army Basic Combat Training, Fort Benning, Georgia, fighting mad -- and they have a message for you: if you believe basic training has gotten soft, you're flat-wrong. The training has gotten smarter, not softer.
Lt. Col. Scott Power, a graduate from Army Ranger school in 1989, and commander of the 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment makes this point clear during an interview with the Fort Benning Bayonet.
“So goes it for every Soldier in the history of the Army. No matter when they came through basic training or Ranger School or whatever, they came through the last hard class. I’m not impressed with leaders who think they have to abuse their Soldiers to train them to standard. I’m not impressed with leaders who think the lack of abuse makes basic training soft. We were all in the last hard class – get over it. We do things differently now, and we’re producing Soldiers every bit as good as we ever have.”
“I’ve had it up to here with people who say basic training isn’t what it used to be, as if that’s a bad thing,” Power said. “We don’t need to use profanity. We don’t need to demoralize these guys who have volunteered to be here, knowing full well they’re joining an Army at war.
“We’re graduating Soldiers who meet all the standards. We stand behind what we put on Pomeroy Field,” he said, referring to the Sand Hill parade field where nearly 29,000 Soldiers graduate from the Basic Combat Training, or Infantry OSUT each year.
Lt. Col. Chris Forbes, commander of the Basic Combat Training's 2nd Battalion, 54th Infantry Regiment, insists it’s a misconception based on widespread misunderstanding about changes during the past few years. Take the issue of fitness standards, for example. It’s common knowledge, he said, that Soldiers are now only required to pass the PT test, with a “50-50-50” score (50 points in sit ups, 50 points in pull ups, and 50 points for 2-mile running time), to graduate from basic training.
“But what they don’t say, those who complain about it, is that these Soldiers must pass (advanced individual training) 60-60-60. They have to meet Army standard,” he said. “And the reason for that is we finally recognized that it didn’t make sense to break a Soldier trying to get him to standard in nine weeks rather than build him up in 13. We’re thinking smarter and producing Soldiers more fundamentally fit.”
Power added to Forbes comments about fitness: He’s repeatedly heard complaints about Soldiers doing push-ups on their knees. It’s a particular sore point with Power, because the media has hyped the misconception by printing photos of Soldiers in this position with no explanation.
And there is an explanation.
“We used to push them till they dropped,” he said. “We know better now. Now, when they reach muscle failure, they go to their knees instead of going to the ground. Using the modified technique is actually tougher than the old method; they can’t quit at muscle failure, they have to modify and keep going. We’re building a more physically fit Soldier.”
