Battlefront.com Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 With all the back and forths about training standards and what not... we've lot sight of the REAL issue here... we now have to read Mord's posts again on a regular basis. I for one think Mord should go back in and try for a 92F. What's that you ask? Apparently it is the Army's equal to a grease monkey Surely a 40 year old guy can hack the physical requirements of checking dipsticks, cleaning windshields, and overcharging the gov't for his services on replacing things that didn't need to be replaced! As Kip would say... "all in good fun" Seriously Mord, welcome back. You gave it your best shot and that is something you'll not regret for the rest of your life. Not having tried at all... that would have been worse, I'm sure. BTW, a guy I know here just "checked in" at 40. He's going for MI, which I think already shows he's smart enough Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 MI? Mobile Infantry? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Military Intelligence, you silly git BTW, I can't comment on the first hand stuff about recruit quality, however the lowering standards are a matter of record. Couple that with some recruiters who are ruthless at hitting their numbers any way they can, and I am sure at least SOME of the recruits going in now would have been turned away prior to 2001. As for the "me first" attitude of today's late teeners... go to Amazon.com and see how many books have been written about that subject! More than 2, that's for sure Recently (within the last couple of years) the Pentagon identified the "obesity epidemic" in the US as a threat to national security. IIRC they did a study and found 25% of the prime recruit age range was not suitable for military service for weight related reasons. That's a HUGE number, especially when there are other factors harming recruitment and retention. And it's also a fact that the Army has had to change its PT programs to take into account the general lower physical quality of the recruits taken in. In an interview I read about this some time ago the officer who was being interviewed basically said "the end product is as good as it has ever been, but getting there takes extra time and effort". Again, I'm not saying that the first hand experiences expressed here are typical or with enough perspective to be considered "accurate". I can't judge that either way. What I am saying is that there are enough irrefutable facts to suggest that the recruiting environment today is not the same as it was for the 10-20 years prior. Unfortunately, in some respects it's getting worse and not better. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clavicula_Nox Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Military Intelligence, you silly git BTW, I can't comment on the first hand stuff about recruit quality, however the lowering standards are a matter of record. Couple that with some recruiters who are ruthless at hitting their numbers any way they can, and I am sure at least SOME of the recruits going in now would have been turned away prior to 2001. As for the "me first" attitude of today's late teeners... go to Amazon.com and see how many books have been written about that subject! More than 2, that's for sure Recently (within the last couple of years) the Pentagon identified the "obesity epidemic" in the US as a threat to national security. IIRC they did a study and found 25% of the prime recruit age range was not suitable for military service for weight related reasons. That's a HUGE number, especially when there are other factors harming recruitment and retention. And it's also a fact that the Army has had to change its PT programs to take into account the general lower physical quality of the recruits taken in. In an interview I read about this some time ago the officer who was being interviewed basically said "the end product is as good as it has ever been, but getting there takes extra time and effort". Again, I'm not saying that the first hand experiences expressed here are typical or with enough perspective to be considered "accurate". I can't judge that either way. What I am saying is that there are enough irrefutable facts to suggest that the recruiting environment today is not the same as it was for the 10-20 years prior. Unfortunately, in some respects it's getting worse and not better. Steve Steve, I know the study you're talking about. If I remember correctly, it was the one led by General William Wallace (Freedom!) Back when the study came out, some buddies and I ran the math and came up with a pretty small eligible pool of recruits. The sad thing is, that only a small portion of those eligible will enlist, and of those, quite a few won't make it through training or finish their first enlistment. It is certainly a challenge, that's for sure. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Clavicula_Nox, Yup, IIRC there were some accompanying numbers which showed what that left us for "prime" recruits likely to sign up. I think the guy's name is Eugene and he lives somewhere in Iowa. Eugene, if you're reading this... the weight of the free world rests on your shoulders, so cut back on the pizza, Coke, iTunes, and Grand Theft Auto IV... OK? Sexting is OK, provided you don't get arrested for posting your own underaged naked pictures because some prosecutors think that deserves a felony conviction. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 In the UK the high heid yins came up with a similar problem...fatty recruits. What did they do? they increased the training regime. Not lengthened it, not made it a gentler curve so that folks had time to adjust. So the same training time with more emphasis on physical training. One really smart officer in the Royal Marines was against it and on TV said "These kids a few Sundays ago were lying in bed watching cartoons. Now we expect them to be Marines. It's too much of a culture shock." I cannot remember his name or his exact quote but it's very similar. The Marine Sergeants response was "I'll give the ****ers a culture shock" You know, just sometimes the Ruperts do have decent ideas. Enhanced PT is great if the kid could hack it in the first place but all it did was put more injuries on people as they had an accelerated program of PT and greater mental stress of trying to get into shape and become a soldier or marine at the same time. The Falklands war showed up a problem with light infantry as they had to tab or yomp for miles to the FEBA so that sparked a PT revolution as well for the elite light infantry units. In my perfect scenario recruits would be given more time to adjust to military life. A mate of mine got charged with "Dirty Flesh" and sent to the pokey after a week in the army. His heinous crime...having some boot polish on his ankle. He told them to "**** themselves" and PVR'd. Another guy got sent to the pokey cos a spider was painted over on his radiator in his barrack block. How in the good lords name was he responsible for civilian contractors painting radiators? Christ knows what he got charged with. I got sent off for having a dirty bin. I emptied it but the sods above us in the block dumped there rubbish in mine and it got picked up on. Things like this just piss people off. I understand and recognise that boot camps have to be horrible places to toughen and shape recruits but sometimes it goes too far with petty vindictiveness and the end result is the army loses a lot of potential charged individuals. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MehMan Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Did this happen all over the place or just with a certain instructor? You have my mind in a seesaw, damn it! Yes no, yes no, oh what the hell. I'm not fat, I run 2 miles almost daily, I do a bit of exercise to keep in shape, but not ultra shape, I can handle 5 pullups and 25 pushups(call me wimpy, I know), but I think I could manage...or could I? But eh, yeah, I guess I'd need to pickup my british passport before even thinking of applying. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 IMHO you're going to be far better off with military PT if you have good cardiovascular conditioning then you do muscle. From everything I've seen, read, and heard about 1st hand from people who have actually gone through the Hell of basic training... endurance is your biggest ally. I've seen some guys rag on the muscleheads who think they are gods because they can bench press their own weight, but get winded going up a flight of stairs really quickly. When you're sent out to run 10 miles in the rain being able to bench press your own weight doesn't matter much. Of course if you can bench press your own weight and run a marathon... you should be signing up for something other than 11B mech infantry Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 The skinny rats who could run 10miles on nothing but a sip of water had it much easier than the beefies. I could do more pull up's than the instructors, who were actually ok about it. They recognised a good effort. The main *******s were the platoon corporals or section leaders. The guys who shouted at you from dawn to dusk. We had a great corporal who actually beat the snot out of another corporal. The other guy interfered with our training and had us sitting on the ground in the pissing rain with our rifles above our heads. Lads got flu-sick from the cold so our Corporal knocked the bejesus out the other guy in the gym. Getting sick is a major hurdle to completing the training. It was a crazy thing to go through. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theFightingSeabee Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Meach, your post just made me go and take a swig off the old southern comfort. Bootcamp was pretty crazy at times. Yeah, the skinnier guys have it easier in the PT part of it. Better endurance, less weight to carry. There were guys at the beginning who could only do 4 effing pushups! By the end of bootcamp, they blew away the PRT! It's the injuries and sickness that really screw people up. I don't know about the UK, but in US bootcamps, they're putting people together from all over, including other countries. All different types of viruses and diseases congregating in one place. I won't even go into the cultural differences between the guys from NYC and the good ol' boys from Montana (a whole thread in it's own right). But, once getting through the first 2/3, the last third of bootcamp wasn't as bad. By the time I got out, I was a lean mean fighting machine. It wasn't easy though. We had what's called a 'Rain Man'. The first time we were waiting to go march to dinner and our RDC's didn't show up. It was a test! So we decided as a group to march down perfectly and all to act perfectly. We marched with perfect precision down to the chow hall, got our food, didn't say a single word, used our stupid handsignals for passing napkins, etc, and started to get up from eating. We look over by the window to see one of our RDC's trying to spy on us while avoiding spiders in the bushes. We all burst into laughter. Well, we ended up marching perfectly back to our barracks. Once we arrived, a voice came over the intercom. "You m* f* stupid dumb * sons of b*s! Attennnnnnnnn HUT!". This is where the Rain Man comes in. He turns on the heater and closes the window. Then he makes you do endless pushups, leg lifts, flutter kicks, running in place, 12 count body builders, side straddle hops, big birds, and any other manner of riduculous ways to throw your own body weight around. After an hour or two, the sweat starts dripping off the ceiling and it 'rains'. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Seabee, That made me laugh. We had similar crap going on but we had to buff the ceilings with hand held buffers, you know the things I mean? The machines that get buzzed about in hospitals and so on. Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels...yeah..I know those names well We had march and shoots with the shoots cancelled and you were told to leave essential kit behind. Arrived to find that the shoots were on and no on had ear-protectors or spare magazines etc etc. Just pointless stuff like that. Wasted everyone's time. I had post traumatic stress disorder even before the paddies started shooting at me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theFightingSeabee Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Seabee, We had similar crap going on but we had to buff the ceilings with hand held buffers, you know the things I mean? The machines that get buzzed about in hospitals and so on. QUOTE] Yes, I know well. We found that a little wax (mop and glow) and an old t-shirt stuck to the buffer can bring a brilliant shine to just about anything. Here's another quick story. We were supposed to take out all the inspector tags from all the pockets in our new uniforms... they called them 'commie tags'. One guy had one sitting right in the main pocket of his peacoat during inspection. He was forced to put it on the ground, blow it across the floor as far as he could without touching it, and say "Damn commie tag, how'd you get in my pocket?", repeating over and over until he made his way all the way around the barracks twice. Stupid punishment, but hilarious to the rest of us! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clavicula_Nox Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 They made us duck walk saying "Aflac aflac aflac" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I swear the guys put in charge of training batallions have to have steel plates in there head and a picture of "momma" under there cap. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconander Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Meach and FightingSeabee, I remember at the 1/508th Moat N Gators in Panama. The newbies had to go into the gator pit and secure the 8-10 gators with 100 mile hour tape and 550 cord. After that they have to clean the pit and capture the turtles and clean their shells and algae. I guess this beats jumping with the gators strapped to you out of a plane. This is the only article I could find but can't access from work http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=7526 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconander Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 As far as overwieght grunts go, I went in about 250 if i remember and was put on the "Fat Boy" diet throughout basic. Too bad in hand to hand I could take the other "Whelps", Pugle (sp?) stick training I ruled throughout my career and ran two miles under 12:00 minutes. Even at 225 I caught some heat even though I could out "hump" most guys out there. Finished 2nd in the EIB 12 mile roadmarch for the battalion. I'll admist Ranger Batt is a tough place for the "Big" man. They were pissed at me when I opted out. The CO told me he thought I was the only one that would make it and tried to get me to reconsider. I felt that it was an honor to have him try and change my mind. But too much sacrifice and always having to pay for some jag-off's sins. On top of that just a crazy time at Ranger Batt with people going off the deap end. Loved the training and the Spirit de Corps but hated some of the people I was with. I had to finish what a lot of the Buck 100s started and get their butts out of some scraps. Plus when you have 130lb rucksacks, you need the big farm boys to hump that stuff. Not that you have rucks like that anymore but before you cast votes from the Sidelines about weight restrictions know that half of it does not come from your physical makeup, it comes from your heart and mental capacity. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 That's the long and the short of it right there "heart and mental capacity". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted April 9, 2009 Author Share Posted April 9, 2009 Thanks for all the well wishes and pats on the backs and such. Sorry, it took so friggin' long for me to reply to my own thread but I've been sick (I don't know if it's residual or something different ) since I've been back and haven't had much energy for more than lurking on and off..that and trying to get back into the swing of daily civilian life...LOL pretty weird when you are used to some pissed off dude breathing down your neck ever second...I keep looking over my shoulder whenever I put my hands in my pockets. I am looking forward to all the up coming stuff BFC's got lined up for us and eventually will drag my butt back into doing some modding...Again though, thanks for all the replies and I apologize for not having the energy to answer everything that was said, one for one. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 Get yourself well. We can wait a few days for your mods 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lethaface Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; cut yourself some slack. Make sure the only sickness that bothers you is a physical one. Dont want to be the all-knower, but having experienced this lack of energy thing from first hand: making sure you can carry a smile around all the time is perhaps the most important in life. Feel good; If you can; go on holiday/make a trip/ get some nice beers from that far away shop, get some music you like and make sure you get away from * for some time. Cheers! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 Lethaface, Dont want to be the all-knower, but having experienced this lack of energy thing from first hand Apparently you live in Amsterdam and go to the "cafes" Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lethaface Posted April 11, 2009 Share Posted April 11, 2009 That, however, is the holy spirit of energy and no knowledge about it should be shared about with nonbelievers This has given me the energy back in times of great distress! But I was unfortunately referring to some heavy traffic accident I was involved in some time ago. Got on my feet after it but sure wasn't a nice time. Anyways, Peace Out! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 11, 2009 Share Posted April 11, 2009 That, however, is the holy spirit of energy and no knowledge about it should be shared about with nonbelievers I went to Amsterdam. I was in college at the time. I don't think I should say any more But I was unfortunately referring to some heavy traffic accident I was involved in some time ago. Got on my feet after it but sure wasn't a nice time. Glad to still have you around. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meach Posted April 11, 2009 Share Posted April 11, 2009 I had the exact same problem with adjusting after coming out the Army. It takes a few months to wear off and eventually you stop marching around the supermarket and watching windows in tall buildings while walking backwards. Tho sometimes it's nice to placed an imaginary claymore when you see a crowd of goths or punks polluting the atmosphere with there existence. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MehMan Posted April 11, 2009 Share Posted April 11, 2009 I thought guidos were the less than popular kind in the USA? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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